“But tell, me, dear, as if I did not know.”
“Ask God to forgive her,” replied Dotty, with her lips close to her mother’s sleeve.
“Then what must Dotty Dimple do? Hasn’t she, too, been a naughty girl?”
The child slid out of Mrs. Parlin’s lap, and knelt before her on the rug.
“O, mamma,” said she, in a choked voice, “I’m afraid He won’t forgive me.”
“Are you sorry you did wrong?”
“Yes’m, I am. And ’twasn’t Tate Penny made me; ’twas me did it myself.”
“That is right, Dotty; so it was.”
“But I won’t hold up my hand again, ’thout it’s to put my hair behind my ears. I won’t do it to purpose—no, indeed!”