"Well, well, child, you needn't have saved such a tiny piece for me; it doesn't amount to anything!"
At the same time she ate the whole at a mouthful. Dotty felt very much irritated. Did Miss Polly think oranges grew on bushes? What was the use to be generous if people wouldn't say "thank you?"
"I don't feel much better than I did when I gave the beggar my money. But I didn't do my 'alms before men' this time, though," said she, looking at her little fat arms and wondering what her grandmother meant by talking of her giving them away.
"I s'pose it's my fingers that grow on the ends of my arms, and that's what I give with," she concluded.
On the whole she was passing a dismal day. 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. If I could get it out, and put my tongue in the hole, then there'd be a gold one come. But I can't. O, dear!"
"Where is your little cousin?" said Miss Polly, coming into the room with her knitting in her hand. "I thought she was with you: I don't wonder they call her Flyaway."
"I don't know where she is, I'm sure, Miss Polly. Won't you please pull my tooth! And do you 'spose I can keep my tongue out of the hole?"
"Why, Dotty, I thought you were going to take care of that child," said Miss Polly, dropping her knitting without getting around to the seam-needle, and walking away faster than her usual slow pace.