"Why, Dotty Dimple, I don't think so," returned Prudy, quite surprised.
"Neither do I," said aunt Maria; "I am afraid our little Dotty is hardly sincere."
Dotty's head drooped a little. "I know it, auntie; I do sew the nicest; but I was afraid it wouldn't be polite if I told it just as it was, and Prudy so good to me, too."
"If she is good, is that any reason why you should tell her a wrong story?" remarked the plain-spoken Susy, giving a twitch to her tatting-thread.
"Children," said Mrs. Clifford, laughing, "do you remember those hideous green goggles I wore a year ago?"
"O, yes 'm," replied Grace; "they made your eyes stick out so! Why, you looked like a frog, ma', more than anything else."
"Well, a certain lady of my acquaintance was so polite as to tell me my goggles were very becoming."
"O, ma, who could it have been?"
"I prefer not to give you her name. I appreciated her kind wish to please me, but I could not think her sincere."
"O, Susy," said Grace, "if you could have seen those goggles! A little basket for each eye, made of green wire, like a fly cover! Ma, did you ever believe a word that lady said afterwards?"