will. I'm always glad after I've been kind. Nothing makes me love Dotty
so well as to try to please her!"

"Now," said she, calling her school to order, "you've learned as far as
S, which I think is doing finely, all alone, with nobody to help us.
This next letter stands, you see, for a _top_. What is it we drink out
of cups?"

"I don't get anything but milk, and that's in a mug," replied Dotty in
an injured tone.

"But what does mother drink? Now think."

Dotty eyed the letter sharply. "Why, mamma drinks coffee sometimes, and
it has grounds; but they don't look like that thing, the grounds don't!
Why, that thing looks like a spade, with the teeth out, wrong side up."

"You mean a _rake_" laughed Prudy. "Well, dear, this is T."

When Dotty came to X, she declared it stood "for your thumb. Susy said
so, and it was in the music-book."

Now came an hour of triumph for the little pupil. Her mother was both
surprised and delighted to hear that her youngest daughter knew all her
letters.

"She can say them skipping about," said Prudy, "and can spell a few
little words, too."

"C, a, t, cat, d, o, g, Zip," laughed Dotty, showing her deepest
dimples, and frisking about the room.

"My dear little ones," said Mrs. Parlin, kissing both the children, "I
am really very much gratified. Both teacher and pupil have shown a great
deal of patience and perseverance."

These words from her beloved mother were most precious to Prudy. Dotty,
though she did not know what was meant by patience and perseverance,
presumed it was something fine, and laughed and danced in great glee.

Nothing remarkable happened during the visit to Florence Eastman, except
that Miss Dimple and Johnny were found running off the track of the
upper railroad just one second after the engine started. Everybody was
very much frightened when it was all safely over. But Dotty said,--

"O, my suz! Me an' Johnny has done that a hundred and a million
times--hasn't we, Johnny? We wait till the injin w'istles, then we run
on to the platform--don't we, Johnny?"

It came out after a while, that these reckless children had also been in
the habit of crossing pins on the track, to make "scissors," the weight
of the cars pressing the two pins into a solid _x_.

"I still tremble," said Mrs. Eastman, with white lips. "This Alice
Parlin is the most daring little creature I ever saw, more harum-scarum
than ever Susy was."

Prudy was Mrs. Eastman's pet. "Prudy," she s