Excerpt from The Little Bog-Trotters: Or, a Few Days at Conmore<br><br>"Twelve o'clock, I declare, and that small child has not returned!" said Mr. Merton to himself, as, awaking from his after-dinner nap, his eye sought the clock upon the mantelpiece. "What absurd hours these little ones keep now-a-days! Ah! there's my pet, I suppose!"<br><br>At that moment a loud knock and ring sound through the house, a slight rustling noise is heard in the hall, a quick, joyous step, a merry laugh, and Elsie Merton, aged ten, stands smiling and bowing before her father (see Frontispiece). She has been to a fancy ball, and makes a quaint, pretty picture in her old-fashioned dress and hat.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.