Here it is four
o'clock. Who knows but she's gone and spent that money, and my
grandmother never'll know what's 'come of it?"

This possibility was very alarming. "Jennie Vance doesn't seem to have
any little whisper inside of _her_ heart, that ticks like a watch;
but _I_ have. _My_ conscience pricks; so I know that perhaps it's my
duty to go and tell."

Dotty drew herself up virtuously and looked in the glass. There she
seemed to see an angelic little girl, whose only wish was to do just
right--a little girl as much purer than Jennie Vance, as a lily is
purer than a very ugly toadstool.

Well, Miss Dotty, there is some truth in the picture. Jennie is not a
good child; but neither are you an angel. There is more wickedness in
your proud little heart than you will ever begin to find out. And wait
a minute. Who teaches you all you know of right and wrong? Is it your
mother? Suppose she had died, as did Jennie's mamma, when you were a
toddling baby?

There, that's all; you do not hear a word I say; and if you did, you
would not heed, O, self-righteous Dotty Dimple!

Dotty ran up stairs to find her grandmother.

"Grandma," whispered she, though there was no one else in the room;
"something dreadful has happened. You've lost three dollars!"

"What, dear?"

"O, you needn't look in your pocket. Jennie found 'em in the rag-bag,
and tried to make me take half; but of course I never; and now she's
run off with 'em!"

"Found three dollars in the rag-bag? I guess not."

"Yes, grandma; for I saw her just as she was going to find em', in a
pair of pockets. I should have seen 'em myself if she hadn't looked
first."

"Indeed! Is this really so? But she ought to have come and given them
to me."

"That was just what I told her, over and over, grandma, and over
again. But she's a dreadful naughty girl, Jennie Vance is. If there's
anything bad she can do, she goes right off and does it."

"Hush, my child."

"Yes'm, I won't say any more, _only_ I don't think my mother would
like to have me play with little girls that take money out of
rag-bags."

Dotty drew herself up again in a very stately way.

"Jennie _said_ she was going to buy you a silk dress and so forth; but
she does truly lie so, 'one to another,' that you can't believe her
for certain, not half she says."

Grandma looked over her spectacles and through the window, as if
trying to see what ought to be done.

[Illustration: "YOU CAN'T BELIEVE HER FOR CERT