r."

"Yes 'm." Dotty was glad to escape into the kitchen.

CHAPTER XI.

AUNT POLLY'S STORY.

Flyaway sat on the kitchen floor, feeding Dinah with a roasted apple.
As often as Dinah refused a teaspoonful, she put it into her own
mouth, saying, with a wise nod, "My child, she's sick; hasn't any
_appletite_."

Out of doors it was raining heartily. It seemed as if the "upper deep"
was tipping over, and pouring itself into the lap of the earth.

"O, Ruthie," sighed Dotty Dimple, "my mother won't come while it's
such weather. Do you s'pose 'twill ever clear off?" [Blank Page]

[Illustration: FLYAWAY AND DINAH.]

"Yes, I do," replied Ruth, trimming a pie briskly; "it only began last
night at five."

"Why, Ruthie Dillon! it began three weeks ago, by the clock! Don't you
know that day I couldn't go visiting? Only sometimes it stops a while,
and then begins again."

"If you're going to have the blues, Miss Dotty, I'll thank you kindly
just to take yourself out of this kitchen. Polly Whiting is here, and
she is as much as a body can endures in this dull weather."

"It's pitiful 'bout the rain, Dotty; but you mustn't scold when God
sended it," said Flyaway, dropping the feeble Dinah, and pursuing her
cousin round the room with a pin. In a minute they were both laughing
gayly, till Flyaway caught herself on her little rocking-chair, and
"got a _torn_ in her apron." That ended the sport.

"What shall I do to make myself happy?" said Dotty, musingly; for she
wished to put off all thought of Prudy's money. "I should like to roll
out some thimble-cookies, but Ruthie hasn't much patience this
morning. I never dare do things when her lips are squeezed together
so."

But Flyaway dared do things. She took up the kitty, and played to her
on the "music," till Ruth's ears were "on edge." After this the
harmonica fell into a dish of soft soap, and in cleaning it with ashes
and a sponge, the holes became stopped.

"It won't _muse_ no more," said Flyaway, in sad surprise, blowing into
the keys in vain. Ruth loved the little child too well to say she was
glad of it.

Flyaway's next dash was into the sink cupboard, where she found a
wooden bowl of sand. This she dragged out, and filling her "nipperkin"
with water, carried them both to Ruth, saying, in her sweet, pleading
way,--

"_If_ you please, Ruthie, will you tell _how_ God does when he takes
the 'little drops of water and little grains of sand,' and makes 'the
mi