Then both the little girls talked sweet nothings to their rag babies, just like any other little girls.
"Is the dollies blind-eyed, too?" asked Katie, making a dash forward, and peeping into the cloth face of a baby.
The little mamma, whose name was Octavia, smiled, and taking Katie by the shoulders, began to touch her all over with her fingers.
"Dear little thing!" said she; "what soft hair!"
"Yes," replied Katie; "velly soft. Don't you wish, though, you could see my new dress? It's got little blue yoses all over it."
[Illustration: DOTTY AND KATIE VISITING THE BLIND GIRLS.]
"I know your dress is pretty," said Octavia, gently, "and I know you are pretty, too, your voice is so sweet."
"Well, I eat canny," said Katie, "and that makes my voice sweet. I'se got 'most a hunnerd bushels o' canny to my house."
"Have you truly?" asked the children, gathering about Flyaway, and kissing her.
"Yes, and I'se got a sweet place in my neck, too; but my papa's kissed it all out o' me."