u would be _unbound_, aunt Polly."

"Yes; but one day Isaac found my money,--I kept it in an old
tobacco-box,--and, just to hector me, he kept tossing it up in the
air, till all of a sudden it fell through a crack in the floor; and
that was the last I saw of it."

[Illustration: "HERE HE IS!"]

"What a naughty, careless boy!"

After Dotty had said this, she blushed.

"Naughty, careless boy!" echoed Flyaway. "Here he is!" holding up a
paper doll shaped very much like a whale, with the fin divided for
legs, the ears of a cat, and the arms of a windmill. "Here he is!"

"He didn't look much like that," said Polly, laughing. "He had plenty
of money of his own, and I tried to make him give me back a quarter;
but do you believe he wouldn't, not even a ninepence? And when I
teased him, that was the time he bit my arm."

"He oughtn't to bitted your arm, course, indeed not!"

"But, aunt Polly," faltered Dotty, whose efforts to forget the
ten-cent piece had proved worse than useless, "but it didn't do Isaac
any good to lose your money down a crack."

"No, it was sheer mischief."

"And if it doesn't do folks any good to lose things, you know, why,
what's the use--to--to--go and get his own money to pay it back
with?--Isaac I mean."

"What do you say, Dotty Parlin? You, a child that goes to Sabbath
school! Don't you know it is a sin to steal a pin? And if we lose or
injure other people's things, and don't make it up to them, we're as
good as thieves."

"As good?"

"As bad, then."

"But s'posin'--s'posin' folks lose things when they _don't_ toss 'em
up in the air, and don't mean to,--the wind, you know, or a kind of an
accident, Miss Polly,--"

"Well?"

"And s'posin' I didn't have any more money 'n I wanted myself, and
Prudy had the most--H'm--"

"Well?"

"Then it isn't as bad as thieves; now is it? She's got the most.
Prudy's older 'n I am--"

"Honesty is honesty," said Miss Polly, firmly, "in young or old. If
you've lost your sister's money, you must make it up to her."

"O, must I, Miss Polly? Such a tinty-tonty mite of money as I've
got,--only sixty-five cents."

"Honesty is honesty," repeated Miss Polly, "in rich or poor."

"Dear me! will my mother say so, too?"

"Your mother is on the right side, Dotty. The Bible tells us to 'deal
justly.' There's nothing said there about excusing poor folks."

"O, dear! do you s'pose the Bible expects me to pay Prudy Parlin ten
cents, when it just blew out of