Hark! Auntie was counting: "One, two, three, four. All safe. Not that I supposed any one would meddle with my cabinet, of course."
"Auntie," burst forth Dotty, her face tingling with shame, "I did. I wore two of those rings, and lost 'em off my thumbs. I don't see how they ever came back in that cabinet, for the only thing I know certain true is, I never put 'em there. O, auntie, if I had't found 'em, I was 'most afraid to tell you about it, because my father's so poor."
"Child, child, you wouldn't have deceived me? I could bear anything better than that. And, Dotty, I don't believe it of you. You would have told the truth."
"Yes, auntie, I do guess I should. It's better to eat fried pork than to act out a lie." What the truth had to do with eating fried pork, Aunt Madge could not imagine; but she assured Dotty she fully believed her when she promised not to meddle in future; and the child bounded down stairs with a heart like a bubble.
Fly had come up to go to bed.
"I've found sumpin," cried she, peeping into a basket behind the door. "It's got eyes, and I know it's a doggie."
"You little rogue! I didn't mean you should see that dog to-night."
"O, it's no matter 'bout me. If Dotty'd seen it, she'd been 'spectin' it!"
The quick-witted child knew just as well then as she did next morning, that the dog—a King Charles spaniel—was intended for her. Mrs. Allen was so amused that she could scarcely sing Fly's by-low hymn:—-
"Sleep, little one, like a lamb in the fold.
Shut from the tempest, safe from the cold;
Sleep, little one, like a star in the sky,
Wrapped in a cloud, while the storm-wind sweeps by."