Without stopping to think twice, Prudy ran off with trembling haste, and by the time the astonished soap-boiler missed her she had reached Congress Street, and was still running.
The first thing she saw, as she entered her own door, was the fluttering of Dotty's pink dress. The runaway was safe and sound. She had only toddled off after a man with a basket of images, calling out, "baa, baa," "moo, moo," "bow-wow." The end of it was, that the image man had given her a toy lamb, for which she had said, "How do," instead of thank you; and Florence Eastman had led her home.
Susy was heartily ashamed of her heedlessness.
"Now, mother," said she, "do you think, if I should be kept on bread and water for a whole day, I should learn to remember? You'll never trust Dotty with me again."
"Ah," said Mrs. Parlin, with a meaning smile; "the trouble is, Susy, you've made up your mind that your memory is good for nothing: you expect to forget! I shall trust you again, and you must fully resolve to do better."
Dotty was very proud of her "baa, baa," and insisted upon putting it in her bathing tub every morning, and scrubbing it with her own hands.
Everybody laughed at Prudy's wild story of the soap-boiler.
"We were tired, my feet and I," said she, between laughing and crying; "but I never'd have rode with that whispering man if I'd known he was a bone man!"