his little daughter was
called by various pet names,--such as Midge, and Ladybird, and
Forget-me-not. Very few were the people who seemed to remember that her
name was Alice.

She had a pair of busy dimples, which were a constant delight to her
sisters.

"They twinkle, twinkle like little stars, only they don't shine," cried
Prudy.

"Why," said Susy, "it's just as if her cheeks were made of water, and
we were skipping pebbles in 'em."

And because of these tiny whirl pools, the child was usually called
Dotty Dimple. From the time she could stand on her own little feet, she
was a queen of a baby, and carried her small head very high. If she
chanced to fall over a chair she seldom shed a tear, but thought the
chair had treated her shamefully, and ought to be shut up in the closet.
She never liked to have any one kiss her little bruises and pity her. It
gave great offence if any one said, "Poor Alice!" She seemed to grow
half a head taller in a minute, and looked as if she would say, "Needn't
make a baby o' _me_!"

Not that she really said so. Talking was a thing she did not often
attempt, though she sang a great deal, with a voice as clear as a flute.
Prudy mourned because her tongue "did not grow fast enough." But where
was the need of speech? If she fancied she would like to be tossed to
the "sky of the room," she had only to pat her father's arm, and point
upward, and the next minute she was flying to the ceiling, in high glee,
and catching her breath. If she wished to go walking, it was enough to
point to the door, and then to her hat. Her little forefinger was as
good as most people's tongues, and served as a tolerably good
guide-post, for it pointed the way she meant to go herself, and the way
she wished others to go.

One day, while Mrs. Parlin was making currant jelly, she allowed Prudy
to stay in the kitchen, and see her strain the beautiful crimson juice.
But as for Alice, she had been found pounding eggs in a mortar, and must
be taken away. She was placed in care of Susy, who led her out upon the
piazza, where she could watch the people passing by. "_Pedadder!_" cried
Alice, showing her dimples. "Yes, _piazza_; so it is," said careless
Susy, beginning to read a fairy story, and soon forgetting her quiet
little charge.

Looking up at last, there was nothing to be seen of Alice. She could not
have entered the house, for the front-door knob was above her reach.

Susy ran out upon the pavement, and looke