“She’s a real beauty,” thought the good-natured Tate, gazing at her companion’s lovely face without envy.
“She has zigzag teeth,” thought the critical Miss Dimple; “but I like her.”
Tate opened her Testament, and let Dotty look on with her while Miss Parker read aloud the morning chapter. It was a leather-covered Testament, and had been scratched by penknives.
“I s’pose she’s a poor little girl,” thought Dotty, “or she wouldn’t have such an owdrageous old book! The outside of it’s all wrinkled up—looks like a raisin.”
At this same moment Tate was thinking, “I s’pose SHE’S a rich little girl,—got on a ring!”
Neither of the children, I fear, paid much heed to the reading. Tate turned back to the fly-leaf, and pointed out to Dotty the words in blue ink, “The Property of Isaac S. Penny,” followed by the wonderful couplet,—
“If you don’t believe this book is mine,
Please look on page thirty-nine.”
Dotty could not read the writing, but was delighted with various hearts and darts, drawn in red ink, and eagles in black, with wings made of loops, and bills made of points. She thought they must have been drawn by a great genius.
After the morning exercises, she sat very prim, and looked straight before her at the blackboard.