But the next moment she was afraid. She had
watched the children from a distance, and she knew them all by sight; she
already felt partly acquainted with them, and each one had excited an
individual interest in her mind. But they had not even seen her, at all;
she was a perfectly strange child to them. And then she said to herself
with real distress, that she was so ignorant and awkward, and they knew so
much, and were so clever, that they would certainly despise her, and
would want to have nothing to do with her. She kept running it all over
and over in her mind during dinner, and could scarcely eat a mouthful, in
her excitement. Before she knew it, the time had come, and her aunt said,
"Now, Dora, you can go!"
So Dora put on her hat and went over to the next house. She went in at the
front door, and passed through the long entry, at the other end of which
the door into the garden stood open. Going out of this door she found
herself in full view of the whole family. Directly in front of her, under
the apple-tree, sat Mr.
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