"Don't talk so, dear!"
"How sorry you do feel to have him so sick! He won't grow up, I s'pose, if he can't play. When he stays in bed it makes him grow littler and littler! Why, how little his neck is! It looks like a dandelion stem!"
"Don't, don't, dear child! Every word you say strikes right to my heart!"
Dotty looked up in Mrs. Gray's face with surprise. What had she said that was wrong? Perhaps she ought not to have talked about dandelions; she would not do it again.
"Dotty," said Mrs. Gray, looking sorrowfully towards the bed, "when fathers and mothers are not very wise, and do not know very well how to take proper care of their families, sometimes the Saviour calls their little children away."
Dotty knew what she meant now. She meant that Charlie was really going to heaven.
"O, Mrs. Gray," said she, "how Prudy and I will feel!" She would have said more, but was afraid she should make another mistake.
She kissed the unconscious little sufferer good by, though still it all seemed like a dream. Was this the same boy who had tried to wash the piggy? The same who had meal-bags tied to his feet?
"A long kiss is a heart-kiss," she repeated to herself; and somehow she wondered if Charlie couldn't take it to heaven with him. Then she walked home all alone with her thoughts.
Next day they told her Charlie was dead. Dotty sat on the sofa for a long time without saying a word; then she went into the nursery, and staid by herself for an hour or two. When she returned she had her new doll in her arms, dressed in black. She wore a strip of black crape about her own neck, and had caught Flyaway long enough to put one upon her arm, as well as upon the knobs of the nursery doors.