“Yes, and I have now,” replied Prudy, holding out her hands, and exhibiting her rosy finger-tips.
“O, those! Why, Prudy Parlin, I think you’re real too-bad, and Norah too! She didn’t want me to spread clo’es; so she told a hint. She’s always telling hints. If I was a Cath’lic, and little girls wanted to hang out clo’es, and make thimble-cookies and things, I wouldn’t treat ’em so, and say there was nails, when I meant fingernails!”
“O, well, Dotty, Norah thinks we are try-patiences, I s’pose. Mother doesn’t allow her to scold, and so she has to manage.”
“H’m!” ejaculated Dotty, with a curling lip. But all this while the “slow clock” was busy.
“Now it is a quarter OF,” said Prudy. She uttered the words as coolly as if they were of very slight importance; but Dotty’s little heart beat like a drum. How often had she heard Prudy say, “It’s a quarter of,” and seen her skip out of the house, kissing her hand for good by! As the door closed after her, Dotty had always felt as if it shut herself out of something beautiful—something every way desirable.
And now it was coming,—the day and the hour. She was about to be a school-girl at last. No longer a little child, who stays at home and plays with paper dolls, but a little woman, who goes out to learn the ways of the world.
As the two children walked on together in advance of Susy, every object looked to Dotty wondrous fair.
“Prudy,” said she, confidentially, “I’ve played enough. I may play a little more once in a while, but not much. I want to grow a great lady, like mamma, and read poetry, and write letters.”
“Yes, dear; but when you get to talking so fast, you keep pushing me into the street with your elbow.”