exceedingly tiresome. She was young, too,--too young to reason about the
uses of suffering. She only knew she was dreadfully afflicted, and
thought everybody ought to amuse her.

"O, dear me!" said Susy, sometimes, "I just believe the more anybody
does for Prudy, the more she expects."

Now this was really the case. When Prudy first began to lie upon the
sofa, everybody pitied her, and tried to say and do funny things, in
order to take up her attention. It was not possible to keep on giving so
much time to her; but Prudy expected it. She would lie very pleasant and
happy for hours at a time, counting the things in the room, talking to
herself, or humming little tunes; and then, again, everything would go
wrong. Her playthings would keep falling to the floor, and, as she could
not stoop at all, some one must come and pick them up that very minute,
or they "didn't pity her a bit."

Every once in a while, she declared her knee was "broken in seven new
places," and the doctor must come and take off the splint. She didn't
want such a hard thing "right on there;" she wanted it "right off."

Her mother told her she must try to be patient, and be one of God's
little girls. "But, mamma," said Prudy, "does God love me any? I should
think, if he loved me, he'd be sorrier I was sick, and get me well."

Then, sometimes, when she had been more fretful than usual, she would
close her eyes, and her mother would hear her say, in a low voice,--

"O, God, I didn't mean to. It's my _knee_ that's cross!"