"I dot the bestest pwesents," cried Chokie, sitting on the floor with his treasures. "Don't tome here, Lill; my dod will bite!" He made the little toy squeak violently. "He barks at folks doin' to meetin'. Dim me some pins."
"What do you want of pins?" Vinnie asked, taking some from her dress.
"To make mans and womans doin' to meetin'. One dood bid black pin for the minister," said Chokie.
Vinnie helped him stick up the pins in the floor, and even found the required big black one to head the procession. Then she pointed out the extraordinary fact of the dog being so much larger than the entire congregation; at which even the sad Caroline smiled, over her sick babe. Chokie, however, gloried in the superior size and prowess of the formidable monster.
Lill was delighted with her scarf,—all the more so when she learned that it had been wrought by Vinnie's own hand.
"O Aunt Vinnie!" said Cecie; "will you teach me to do such work? I should enjoy it so much—lying here!"
"With the greatest pleasure, my dear!" exclaimed Vinnie, her heart brimming with hope and joy at sight of the simple happiness her coming had brought.
She then hastened to put on a household dress; while Cecie looked at her book, and Lill sported her scarf, and Chokie earned himself a new nickname,—that of Big-Bellied Ben,—by making a feast of his meeting-house, beginning with the steeple.