“Children are never widows,” said Susy, laughing; “it isn’t possible!  But if their parents die, they are orphans sometimes.”

“That’s just what I meant,” exclaimed Prudy, looking crestfallen.  “I should think you might know what I mean, ’thout laughing at me, either.”

Before long Dotty Dimple arrived, in great triumph.  She threw her chubby arms about her mother’s neck, saying, “Is I your little comfort, mamma?  I camed in the hoss and carriage.  S’an’t give Prudy no supper—­will you?  ’Cause Prudy runned away!”

“I should not have allowed this child to come,” said Mrs. Parlin, at the tea table; “but cousin Percy always picks up the stray babies, and gives them a ride.”

Dotty looked as if she could easily forgive her cousin Percy.  But there was one thing that made her nice supper taste like “spoiled nectar,” and that was the sight of Prudy enjoying her strawberries and cream.

If she had runned away, as Dotty insisted upon believing, why was she not shut up in the closet?  Strange to say, dearly as Dotty loved this kind sister, she enjoyed seeing her punished.  She was vexed because Prudy was allowed, after all, to sit at the table with the rest of the family.  The little creature was very tired, for she had driven ducks all the long summer day.  She was also a little sleepy; and, more than all, it was one of her “temper days,” when everything went wrong.

After tea she had a serious quarrel with her little cousin Johnny, over a dead squirrel, which they both tried to feed with sugared water, from a teaspoon.

“Johnny,” cried she, “don’t you touch his mouf any more!  If you do, I s’an’t w’ip you, Johnny, but I’ll sp’inkle some ashes on your head!  Yes, I will.”

Johnny, heedless of the threat, tried again to force open Bunny’s stiff mouth, Dotty’s beautiful eyes blazed.

Without a word she walked off proudly to the kitchen, and came back with a handful of cold ashes, which she freely sifted into Johnny’s flaxen hair.  Mrs. Parlin saw that it was high time to take her youngest daughter home.

“O, mother,” said Prudy, who always felt herself disgraced by her little sister’s bad conduct, “sometimes Dotty pretty nearly makes you cry!  Don’t you almost wish you hadn’t any such little girl?”

“My dear child, I am her mother, and she could hardly do anything so naughty that I should cast her out of my heart.  When she has these freaks of temper, I think, ’God bears with me, and I will try to bear with my little one.  I will wait.  One of these days, when her reason grows, she will be a real blessing to us all.’”

Mrs. Parlin proceeded to put on Dotty’s outer wrappings, saying she must be taken home.  The child struggled and screamed, and declared she “would be good, she would be a comfort;” but her mother was firm, though her sweet temper never for a moment forsook her.  Susy and Prudy looked on, and learned a lesson in patience which was worth twenty lectures.