“I don’t know what Miss Parker’ll think,” said the child; “she always looks to see if I am there.”
But Dotty was not at all sorry to be sitting between her mother and her grandmother, making a book-mark, while the wind whistled at the windows, and the fire glowed in the grate.
“You needn’t try to get in here, old Wind,” said she, shaking her sampler fiercely; “you can’t get through the double windows! O, mamma, it doesn’t seem much as it did yesterday, with me a-blowing to which ways, and thought I shouldn’t live to get home—hadn’t any h-o-p-e,” added she, quoting from her book-mark.
“We will try to be very thankful you were spared,” said Mrs. Parlin, kissing the earnest little face.
“Yes, thee could easily have died,” said. Mrs. Read; “but the Lord willed it otherwise.”
Dotty held her needle in the air, and looked into the coals. There was a picture there of a white snow-storm, and two little girls lying dead, like the babes in the wood, with only the storm to wrap them in chilly sheets of snow.
“Yes, we could have tipped over and died very easy,” thought she, with a shudder; “but it wasn’t best; so a boy came and saved us. But,” said she, aloud, “I guess he didn’t know God sent him, or he wouldn’t have dared whistle a lie with his mouth, when there wasn’t a bit of a dog to whistle to.”
Grandma looked into the coals, and said nothing.