“Never mind about noses,” said she, pleasantly. “Here’s something I baked for you this morning.”
It was a little custard pie, with a delicate surface of sugar frosting.
“O, thank you, ever so much! I’ll never call your nose blue again. Your mother’s is, but yours isn’t.”
Dotty skipped away to show the pie to her sisters.
“Norah wouldn’t have made it if I’d run away. Nobody blames me this time; how can they, Prudy, when I did just right?”
Little thrills of exceeding joy danced through and through Dotty’s heart. It was so seldom she got into trouble when she “wasn’t to blame,” and could say she had done “just right”!
“What do you find in that paper that interests you so much, my dear?” said her father, as he saw her eagerly spelling out the advertisements in the Portland Press.
Dotty did not reply at once. She did not like to confess that she had been looking for her own name, “Alice Parlin, a little girl with a red calico wrapper, and little pockets in.” But no such name appeared. There seemed to be very much said about silk, and soap, and lard, and nails; but nothing at all concerning two little girls who had lost their way in the storm. Dotty concluded the mayor had not heard of it.
“Are you sure you know all your letters, Alice?” said Mr. Parlin, quite amused by her earnestness.
“O, papa, what an idea! When I’ve known them for years and years, and been to school in the primary’s department in the First Reader up to the head three times!”