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sy's long wrapper following after little Dotty Dimple like the closing feet in one of Polly's long-metre verses. Still the moon shone with the same white, ghostly light, and the sun continued to keep away. "This beats all," said Polly, mournfully; as she washed her hands, strained the milk, and set the pans away. "If I judged by my feelings, I should say it must be six o'clock, or very near it. At any rate, I'm going to have a cup of tea. What's this smell?" On the stove stood a pool of something which looked like liquid silver, and proved to be the remains of the best tea-pot. At any other time Dotty would have felt very sorry; but now the accident seemed a mere trifle, when compared with the staying away of the sun. Who could tell "if ever morn should rise?" Even Miss Polly, with her constitutional gloom, was not just now so miserable as Dotty, and never dreamed that it was anything but sleepiness which made the little girl so sober. Dotty was not a child who could tell all the thoughts which troubled her youthful brain. "Well, well," said Polly, giving another inquiring glance at the sky; "not a streak of daylight yet! I'll tell you what it is, Dotty; we might as well go to bed." But hark! As she spoke there was a loud report as of a pistol. It seemed to come from the cellar. Miss Polly clapped both hands to her ears. Dotty shrieked, and hid her face in her lap, and shrieked again. "It has come! It has come!" cried she,--meaning the end of the world,--and stopped her ears. "What, what, what!" whispered Polly, in sore affright, walking back and forth, and taking snuff as she went. It was certainly startling to hear a pistol go off so unexpectedly, at that solemn hour, under one's very roof. Polly naturally thought first of housebreakers. She had barred and double-barred every door and window; but now she remembered with dreadful remorse she had not fastened the outside cellar door. No doubt it had been left open, and burglars had got into the cellar. O, what a responsibility had been put upon her! and why hadn't somebody particularly warned her to attend to that door? Perhaps the burglars were stealing pork. But they would not have fired a pistol at the barrel--would they? O, no; they were trying to blow up the house! Polly took three pinches of snuff, one after the other, as fast as she could, slipped off her shoes, went to the kitchen window, and peeped through the blinds. Not much to be seen but
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