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Prudy spoke these words with awe. She thought "going through the Rithmetic" was next thing to going round the world. "O Auntie, I'm so glad you came," said Susy, "for I didn't see how I was ever going to finish my Christmas presents: I go to school, you know, and it takes me all the rest of the time to slide!"
Susy and Prudy had the promise of sitting up till it got in, if Dotty Dimple was only willing. But Dotty said, "O, no; you better go to bed when I go, Prudy, or you'll hear somebody scream." "Let's see," said Prudy. "I've thought of something nice. Wouldn't you like to go to aunt Martha's, and stay all the afternoon and all night?" Dotty gave a little purr, like a happy kitten.
I shan't talk in school, nor I shan't whisper, never in my world!" When they got home that night, Mrs. Parlin asked if Prudy had whispered in school. "No, ma'am. I never done such a thing I guess. Did I, Susy? How much I didn't talk to you, don't you know?" "O, she was pretty good, mother," said Susy; "but she cried once so I had to go out with her." "Now, Susy Parlin, you told me to cry!
"Then, if she goes, I'll have to go too, or there'll be a fuss," sighed Susy, stroking the baby's hair, which was as soft as a mouse's fur. Both children cast a lingering look at the bewitching little figure, so daintily wrapped in a fleecy blanket. Prudy felt tempted to snatch her up and give her a good hugging, but stood in mortal fear of the nurse. There was something awful about Mrs.
"Poor pussy, she has turned white white all over!" "You don't mean to say that was Fly Clifford?" cried Prudy. "Shut her up, auntie," said Dotty Dimple; "she's a kitty. I always knew her name was Kitty." Fly ran and courtesied before the mirror in her nightie. "O, Kitty Clifford, Kitty Clifford," she cried, "when'll you be a cat?"
Gray, who was not strong, and had only a young girl in the kitchen, declared that, dearly as she loved the baby, she found him a deal of trouble. Dotty's face was radiant; but Prudy, who understood that the whole conversation was merely a playful one, looked down upon her younger sister with a sage smile.
She had been told that she must not go away; and it happened that nobody came, not even Jennie Vance. "If Prudy had been left alone, all the girls in town would have come to see her," thought the forlorn Miss Dimple, putting a string round one of her front teeth, and trying to pull it out by way of amusement. "O, dear, I can't move my tooth one inch.
The superior tone of Mary's question made it seem that she was twenty years older than the child at her side, instead of only two. "I like the Dotty Dimple books," finally admitted Girlie. "Mamma read me all of them and several of the Prudy books, and I have read half of 'Flaxie Frizzle' my own self." "Oh!" exclaimed Mary, in a tone expressing enlightenment. "I see! Nothing but juvenile books!
The three children tripped along together, taking up Freddy Jackson on the way a deaf and dumb boy, who only knew when it thundered by the jar he could feel. Everybody was kind to Freddy. Dotty Dimple, with all her faults, was never known to be impatient with the poor boy. The children reached the sea-shore, which was somewhere "near the water," though Dotty had assured Prudy to the contrary.
"No, you'll mean to be good, I dare say," answered aunt Louise, speaking more kindly, "if you don't forget it. And you'll be a nice, dear little girl, won't you, Prudy?" "I don't know," said Prudy, coolly. "Don't know? Why, do you think I should have taken you visiting if I hadn't supposed you'd try to be good?"
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