“Are you real sick, though, Dotty Dimple?”

“Yes, I are,” replied Dotty, well pleased to be asked such a question.  “I got ’most drowned, you know.  O, I wish you’d stayed out in the rain the other day, and got cold; then you’d have been sick, too.”

Prudy smiled, for she knew that her little sister really had no such unkind wish at heart.  She was only trying, with her limited stock of words, to say that she longed to have a little sympathy.  It was not often that Dotty was willing to be pitied.

“See here, Prudy darling, don’t you want a piece of my cough-candy?  It’s good!  You may bite clear down to there, where I’ve scratched with a pin.”

“No, thank you, dear, I don’t care a bit for it.”

Dotty’s face beamed with joyous dimples.  It was so pleasant to be generous, and at the same time keep the candy!  In her short life Dotty Dimple had not quite learned that “the half is better than the whole.”

“Now,” said Prudy, after thinking a while, “suppose we play that you’re sick,—­as you are, you know,—­and I’m the doctor.”

Dotty gave a little scream of delight.

“You may see my tongue,” said she, running to the looking-glass; “it’s real rusty.  Can’t you scrape it with a knife, Brady?”

“You must say doctor, when you speak to me.  Now, my dear patient, it’s best for you to lie on the lounge, and take medicine in the chest.  Poor young lady, we shall be so glad when you get your health all well!—­Do you want me to extricate a tooth?  Have you any headache, miss?”

Prudy’s voice was low and sympathetic.  “Yes, Dr. Prudy,” replied the patient, with a stifled groan; “I’ve truly got the ache in my head; it pricks through my hair.”  “I’ll tell you the cause of that, my dear patient; I suspect your pillow’s made of pin-feathers.  Let me feel your pulse on the back of your hand—­your wrist, I mean.  Terrible,” moaned the young doctor, gazing mournfully at the ceiling; “it’s stopped beating.  Can’t expect your life now.  O, no!”

“Now you must put your hands behind you, and walk across the room,” suggested Dotty; “that’s the way.”

“If my memory preserves me right,” continued the young doctor, pacing the floor, “you’ve got the—­ahem!—­pluribus unum.”  Here Dr. Prudy ran her fingers through her hair.  “But it goes light this year—­with care, ma’am, you know.  So I’ll go and stir you up some pills in my marble mortar.”

“O, dear me, doctor; don’t you now!  Bring me some lemonade and nuts, for I’m drefful sick; but don’t bring me no pills nor molters!”

“Poh, only brown bread, Dotty! what do you suppose?”

Upon the whole, Miss Dimple, being petted to her heart’s content, had quite a comfortable day of it.

In the evening she asked,—­

“Mightn’t I eat supper, all alone, in the parlor?  Once, when I had the sores all wrinkled out on my face, on my chin and round my eyes, all round, then I ate in the parlor.”