“I never said she was, Tate; did I, Johnny? But I don’t want to go to a school where the hens kerdahcut right in the house, and they give their flowers tea and coffee!”
“Hurrah for you, Dot Dimple!” cried Johnny; but poor little Tate wiped off a tear with the thumb of her mitten.
The end of it all was, that as Dotty would not go to Mrs. Piper’s school, Tate left it, and went back to Miss Parker with Dotty.
“We want to sit together as long as we live,” said Dotty, coming home one night in a very happy frame of mind; “and the teacher says we are her little comforts!”
“Only think of Dotty’s being a comfort!” said Susy, with a curling lip; but Mrs. Parlin looked at her oldest daughter reprovingly, and Susy added,—
“But you do grow better, Dotty, I declare you do!” and kissed the child on the forehead.
Praise from Susy! This was something new! Dotty’s eyes twinkled and shone like stars on a winter’s night.
“You are getting to be just like anybody now,” said Prudy. “You can make bookmarks, and go to school, and have vacations.”
“I know it,” replied Dotty, with a queenly pose of the head; “and when we go to vacation, next summer, there won’t anybody ask, ‘Is this Mrs. Parlin’s baby?’”
“No, indeed,” said Prudy, consolingly. “Flyaway will be the only baby there is at Willowbrook next summer, and she is growing up.”