CHAPTER V.

THE MAJOR'S JOKE.


While Dotty was dressing next morning, she fell to thinking
again of her own importance as a young lady travelling _almost_ all
alone by herself; and then it occurred to her that Jennie Vance, the
judge's daughter, had never been any farther than Boston.

"When she comes to Portland next winter to see her aunties that live
there, then I'll talk to her all about my travelling out West. But I
needn't tell her how that baby choked, nor how that naughty Dollyphus
made fun of me. No, indeed!"

As she spoke she was pouring water into the wash-bowl; but her
indignation towards Mrs. Lovejoy and "Dollyphus" made her hand unsteady;
the pitcher came suddenly against the edge of the bowl, whereupon its
nose and part of its body flew off into space. Dotty held the handle,
and looked at the ruins in astonishment.

"Did _I_ do that?"

She had no time to spend in lamentation.

"I don't want to let my papa know what I've done," thought she, giving
the last hasty touches to her toilet: "he'll have to go and pay the man
that keeps house; and then I'm afraid he'll think, if his little girl
keeps choking folks and breaking things, I ought to stay at home."