e a word that lady said afterwards?"

"Flatterers are not generally to be trusted," replied Mrs. Clifford.
"Flyaway, that is the fourth needle you have lost."

Here was another lesson for Dotty's memory-shelf. "I must not say
things that are not true, just to be polite. It is flattering and
wicked; and besides that, people always know better."

It was a quiet, busy, cheerful day. Dotty forgot to complain of the
weather. Just before supper Flyaway jumped down from her grandpapa's
knee, where she had been talking to him through his "conversation-tube,"
and ran to the window.

"Why, 'tisn't raining," cried she; "true's I'm walking on this floor
'tisn't raining!"

Dotty clapped her hands, and watched the sun coming out like pure
gold, and turning the dark clouds into silver.

"We were patient and willing for it to rain," said she; "but of course
that wasn't why it cleared off."

And it wasn't why Flyaway lost her thumb-nail, either. She lost
that--or half of it--in the crack of the door. The poor little thumb
was very painful, and had to be put in a cot.

"It wearies me," said Flyaway; "it makes me afraid I shan't ever have
a nail on there again."

Her mother assured her she would. The same God who calls up the little
blades of grass out of the ground could make a finger-nail grow.

"Will He?" said Flyaway, smiling through tears; "but 'haps He'll
forget how it looks. Musn't I save a piece of my nail, mamma, and lay
it up on the shelf, so He can see it, and make the other one like it?"

Mrs. Clifford put the nail in her jewel-box, and I dare say it may be
there to this day.

Just as Flyaway, in her nightie, was having a frolic with Grace, there
was a sound of wheels. The stage, which Horace called the "Oriole"
because it had a yellow breast, was rolling into the yard.

"It's my mother--my mother," cried the three Parlins together.

Yes, and who was that little girl getting down just after her? Her hat
covered her eyes. "It isn't Tate Penny!" Why, to be sure it was! There
was her dimpled chin; and if that wasn't proof enough, there was the
wart on her thumb!

To think such a glorious thing as this could happen to Dotty! and she
not the best girl in the world either! A visit from her bosom friend!
"Aunt 'Ria, do you understand? Aunt Louise? Gracie? This is _Tate
Penny_!"

"Who asked her to come? How did she happen to be with mamma, the same
day, in the same cars?"

Well, grandma Parlin invited her to come