She was wheeled home in a small carriage, followed by a guard of all the girls.  Next day she was duly punished by being tied to the bedpost with the clothes-line.

“I wish her reasons would begin to grow,” sighed Prudy.  “I never can feel happy when Dotty gets into a fuss.”

“I’ve been thinking it all over,” replied Susy, “and I’ve made up my mind that God allows her to mortify you and me.  You know we must have some kind of a trial, or we shouldn’t grow gentle and sweet tempered.”

“As mother is,” added Prudy.

CHAPTER VI.

THE LITTLE TEACHER.

At last Dotty’s “reasons” did begin to grow.  Her mother was too wise and kind to allow her to have her own naughty way; and by the time she was four years old she had very few “temper days,” and seemed to be growing quite lovely.

But her sisters were troubled because she had not yet learned to read.  Prudy remembered how ashamed she herself had felt when she first set out in earnest to go to school.  For some time after her lameness she was so delicate that no pains had been taken to teach her to read.

“My little sister must never be so stupid as I was,” thought Prudy, uneasily.

Sometimes visitors inquired if Miss Dotty knew her letters, and poor Prudy blushed with shame when Mrs. Parlin calmly replied that she did not.

“I’m sure mother feels mortified,” thought Prudy; “but she holds up her head, and tries to make the best of it.  I’ll not say a word to anybody, but I mean to teach my little sister my own self!”

So one Wednesday afternoon, when Susy was away, Prudy called Dotty into the nursery, and shut the door.

“What you want me of?” asked the child.

“I want to tell you something nice.  Don’t you wish you knew your A, B, C’s, darling?  There, that’s what it is.”

Dotty shook her head three or four times, and looked down at the carpet.

“Why, Dotty Dimple, you oughtn’t to do so.  You must answer when a question is asked.  Wouldn’t you like to learn your letters, like a goody girl, so you can read the nice books?  Now be polite, and speak.”

“I don’t want to be polite, and speak, nor I don’t want to learn my letters, like a goody gell; so there!” replied Dotty, seizing the kitty, and wrapping her in a shawl.

“O, Dotty Dimple!” said Prudy, in a tone of deep distress; “how old you’re getting to be! just think!”

“I’m four years old, and I weigh four pounds,” answered Dotty, drawing out her little cab, and throwing the muffled kitty into it, as if she had been a roll of cloth.

“O, my stars, Dotty, I can’t bear to have you talk so.”

Dotty tucked in the kitty’s tail, and drew the carriage about the room, to give “Pusheen” an airing.  “Pusheen” was her kitty’s name in Irish.

“You can’t think how dreadful it is, Dotty, to grow up and not know anything!”