Miss Polly laughed quite merrily.
"There," said she, "I've dropped a stitch in my side; it never agrees with me to laugh. I must be going right home, too; but there is one thing more I want to ask you, Katie; do you remember how you ran away, one day, and frightened the whole house, trying to climb up to heaven?"
Katie's face was blank; she had forgotten the journey.
"You passed Jennie Vance and me in the Pines," said Dotty, "and went deep into the woods, and a bee stung you."
"O, now I 'member," said Katie, suddenly. "I 'member the bee as plain as 'tever 'twas!" And she curled her lip with contempt for that small Flyaway, of long ago—that silly baby who had thought heaven was on a hill.
"I went up on a ladder when I was three years old," said Prudy.
"Did you?" said Flyaway. This was a consolation. "Well, I was three years old, too; I didn't know 'bout angels—didn't know they had to have wings on."
Here Flyaway curled her lip again and smiled.
"You are wiser now," sighed Miss Polly. "You and I won't try to go to heaven till our time comes—will we, dear?"
Katie took Miss Polly's large, thin hand, and measured it beside her own tiny one.