ghty _oshum_' with um, '_and_ the pleasant land'?"

Ruthie had no answer but a kiss and a smile.

"There, away with you into the nursery, both of you. I know Polly
Whiting is lonesome without you."

Off went the children, Flyaway "with a heart for any fate," but Dotty
still oppressed by the shadow of the ten-cent piece.

"If I don't give it to Prudy, will I be dishonest? Will I be as bad
as Jennie Vance?"

When they entered the nursery, Miss Polly was standing before the
mirror, arranging her black cap, and weaving into her collar a square
black breast-pin, which aunt Louise said looked like a gravestone.
Flyaway peeped in too, placing her smooth pink cheek beside Miss
Polly's wrinkled one.

"I don't look alike, Miss Polly," said she; "and you don't look alike
too."

Certainly not; no more alike than a blush-rose bud and a dried apple.

"What makes the red go out of folks' cheeks when they grow old, and
the wrinkles crease in, like the pork in baked beans?" queried Dotty.

"I couldn't tell you," replied the good lady, giving a pat to her cap,
and settling the bows carefully; "but if you had asked how I happened
to grow old before my time, I should say I'd had such a hard chance
through life, and trouble always leaves its mark."

"Does it? O, dear! I have trouble,--ever so much; will it quirk my
face all up, like yours?"

"You have trouble, Dotty Parlin? Haven't you found out yet that the
lines have fallen to you in pleasant places?"

"I don't know what you mean by lines," said Dotty, thinking of
fish-hooks; "but when it rains, and folks want me to do things that
are real hard, then why, I'm blue, now truly."

"Then we're blue, now truly," added Flyaway by way of finish.

"What would you do, children, if you were driven about, as I used to
be, from post to pillar, with no mother to care for you?"

"If I hadn't no mamma, I could go barefoot, like a dog," said Flyaway,
brightening with the new idea; "I could paddle in the water too, and
eat pepnits."

"O, child! But what if you had neither father nor mother?"

"Then," said Flyaway coolly, "I should go to some house where there
_was_ a father'n mother."

"Why, you little heartless thing! But that is always the way with
children; their parents set their lives by them, but not a 'thank you'
do they get for their love! Try a pinch," continued she, offering her
snuff-box to the little folks, who both declined. This Polly thought
was strange. They must lik