“But what does mother drink?  Now think.”

Dotty eyed the letter sharply.  “Why, mamma drinks coffee sometimes, and it has grounds; but they don’t look like that thing, the grounds don’t!  Why, that thing looks like a spade, with the teeth out, wrong side up.”

“You mean a rake” laughed Prudy.  “Well, dear, this is T.”

When Dotty came to X, she declared it stood “for your thumb.  Susy said so, and it was in the music-book.”

Now came an hour of triumph for the little pupil.  Her mother was both surprised and delighted to hear that her youngest daughter knew all her letters.

“She can say them skipping about,” said Prudy, “and can spell a few little words, too.”

“C, a, t, cat, d, o, g, Zip,” laughed Dotty, showing her deepest dimples, and frisking about the room.

“My dear little ones,” said Mrs. Parlin, kissing both the children, “I am really very much gratified.  Both teacher and pupil have shown a great deal of patience and perseverance.”

These words from her beloved mother were most precious to Prudy.  Dotty, though she did not know what was meant by patience and perseverance, presumed it was something fine, and laughed and danced in great glee.

Nothing remarkable happened during the visit to Florence Eastman, except that Miss Dimple and Johnny were found running off the track of the upper railroad just one second after the engine started.  Everybody was very much frightened when it was all safely over.  But Dotty said,—­

“O, my suz!  Me an’ Johnny has done that a hundred and a million times—­hasn’t we, Johnny?  We wait till the injin w’istles, then we run on to the platform—­don’t we, Johnny?”

It came out after a while, that these reckless children had also been in the habit of crossing pins on the track, to make “scissors,” the weight of the cars pressing the two pins into a solid x.

“I still tremble,” said Mrs. Eastman, with white lips.  “This Alice Parlin is the most daring little creature I ever saw, more harum-scarum than ever Susy was.”

Prudy was Mrs. Eastman’s pet.  “Prudy,” she said, “was a natural lady:  the other two were romps.”

The next Monday Mrs. Parlin and the three children started for Willow-brook.  Dotty wished to take her sweet Pusheen and her darling Zip; but it was decided that Pusheen must stay at home, and help keep house.

“Be a good kitty,” said her little mistress, embracing her, “and eat all the mice in the mouse-chamber, ’fore they grow up rats!”

But Zip was allowed to go to Willow-brook; and Dotty watched him all the way, scarcely allowing him to stir from the seat beside her.

“No,” said she, holding him firmly by both ears; “Dotty’d be glad to let you get down, but she doesn’t think it’s best.  You is only a doggie, and you’d get runned over and die.  So now, Zippy, you’ll have to give up, and it’s no use to bark.”