"It isn't done yet, Dotty; but it will be. She's going to be married."
Dotty dropped her mud-cake. "Why! who to? Abner?"
"O, dear, no! To Mr.—I mean Colonel—Augustus Allen. Didn't you ever hear of that?"
"Was that why he sent his objections to mamma?" asked Dotty, in a low voice.
"He sent his respects to mother, if that's what you mean; and in the same letter he said, 'Give oceans of love to Prudy.' As if it wasn't bad enough to break my heart, without trying to drown me," murmured Prudy, with dripping eyes.
"I don't see what you're crying for," broke in her little sister. "I shall marry my papa one of these days. I should think you'd feel badder about that. Who's you goin' to marry, Prudy?"
"Nobody, Dotty, as long as I live! I shall stay at home with my mother, and she'll be sitting in the rocking-chair, knitting, and father'll be sitting by the window, reading the paper.—But there," added she, "aunt Madge might be married three or four times, and I wouldn't care. It's her going to New York that makes my heart ache so."
"Well, shell come back bimeby," said Dotty, soothingly.
"O," replied Prudy, with a wise smile; "seems to me when I was four years old I knew a great deal more than you do, child! People that are married stay away always."
"I wish they wouldn't," cried Dotty, beginning to feel alarmed. "I'll ask Colonel 'Gustus to marry Abby Grant after she gets growed, and let my auntie stay at home."