and a stronger faith in her heart than she had felt for many a day that
Dotty really meant to do better. "You don't know how it did distress your
papa and me to have you stay in that house a night and a day; but we
hoped it would prove a lesson to you; we meant it for your best good."

To make sure the lesson would not be forgotten, Prudy read her little
sister a private lecture. She had written it that afternoon with carmine
ink, on the nicest of tinted paper. Dotty received it very humbly, and
laid it away in the rosewood box with her precious things.

* * * * *

PRUDY'S LECTURE.

"We must keep good company, Dotty, or not any at all. This is a fact.

"Even an apple is known by the company it keeps. Grandpa Parlin says if
you put apples in a potato bin, they won't taste like apples--they'll
taste like potatoes.

"Sometimes I think, Dotty, you'd be as good and nice as a
summer-sweeting, if you wouldn't play with naughty children, like Lina
Rosenberg; but if you do, you'll be like a potato, as true as you live.

"Finis."




CHAPTER IX.