“Anything,” said Mr. Parlin, “but these womanly little girls, such as I have seen sitting in a row, sewing seams, without animation enough to tear rents in their own dresses!  If Susy loves birds, and flowers, and snowbanks, I am thankful, and perfectly willing she should have plenty of them for playthings.”

Then, when Mrs. Parlin smiled mischievously, and said, “I should like to know what sort of a wild Arab you would make out of a little girl,” Mr. Parlin answered triumphantly,—­“Look at my sister Margaret!  I brought her up my own self!  I always took her out in the woods with me, gunning and trouting.  I taught her how to skate when she was a mere baby.  I often said she was all the brother I had in the world!  She can remember now how I used to wrap her in shawls, and prop her up on the woodpile, while I chopped wood.”

“And how you hired her to drop ears of corn for you into the corn-sheller; and how, one day, her fingers were so benumbed, that one of them was clipped off before she knew it!”

“Well, so it was, that is true; but only the tip of it.  Active children will meet with accidents.  She was a regular little fly-away, and would sooner climb a tree or a ladder any time, than walk on solid ground. Now look at her!”

And Mr. Parlin repeated the words, “Now look at her,” as if he was sure his wife must confess that she was a remarkable person.

Mrs. Parlin said, if Susy should ever become half as excellent and charming as Miss Margaret Parlin, she should be perfectly satisfied, for her part.

Thus Susy was allowed to romp to her heart’s content; “fairly ran wild,” as aunt Eastman declared, with a frown of disapproval.  She gathered wild roses, and wore them in her cheeks, the very best place in the world for roses.  She drank in sunshine with the fresh air of heaven, just as the flowers do, and thrived on it.

But there was one objection to this out-of-doors life:  Susy did not love to stay in the house.  Ainu days and evenings, to be sure, she made herself very happy with reading, for she loved to read, particularly fairy books, and Rollo’s Travels.

But now, just as she had learned to skate on the basin with other little girls and young ladies, and could drive Wings anywhere and everywhere she pleased, it was a sore trial to give up these amusements for the sake of spending more hours with poor little Prudy.  She was very self-denying at first, but it grew to be an “old story.”  She found it was not only pony and skates she must give up, but even her precious reading, for Prudy was jealous of books, and did not like to have Susy touch them.  She thought Susy was lost to her when she opened a book, and might as well not be in the house, for she never heard a word that anybody said.

Now I know just what you will think:  “O, I would have given up a great deal more than ponies and books for my dear little sister!  I would have told her stories, and never have complained that my ‘tongue ached.’  It would not have wearied me to do anything and everything for such a patient sufferer as little Prudy!”