aunt Madge always answered. She did not say, "O, dear, you've startled
me out of a delicious nap!" She said, "Well, darling, what do you want?"
Prudy generally wanted to know when it would be morning? When would the
steamboat whistle? What made it stay dark so long? She wanted a drink of
water, and _always_ wanted a story.

If aunt Madge had forgotten to provide a glass of water, she put on her
slippers, lighted the little handled lamp, and stole softly down stairs
to the pail, which Norah always pumped full of well-water the last thing
in the evening.

Or, if Prudy fancied it would console her to have a peep at her
beautiful doll which "would be alive if it could speak," why, down
stairs went auntie again to search out the spot where Susy had probably
left it when "she took it to show to some children."

The many, many times that kind young lady crept shivering down stairs to
humor Prudy's whims! Prudy could not have counted the times; and you may
be sure aunt Madge never _would_.

Then the stories, both sensible and silly, which Prudy teased for, and
always got! Aunt Madge poured them forth like water into the _sieve_ of
Prudy's mind, which could not hold stories any better than secrets. No
matter how many she told, Prudy insisted that she wanted "one more," and
the "same one over again."

It touched Susy to the heart to see how much her little sister
suffered, and she spent a great deal of time at first in trying to amuse
her. Aunt Madge told stories in the night; but Susy told them in the
daytime, till, as she expressed it, her "tongue ached." She cut out