kind sister, she enjoyed seeing her punished. She was vexed because
Prudy was allowed, after all, to sit at the table with the rest of the
family. The little creature was very tired, for she had driven ducks all
the long summer day. She was also a little sleepy; and, more than all,
it was one of her "temper days," when everything went wrong.

After tea she had a serious quarrel with her little cousin Johnny, over
a dead squirrel, which they both tried to feed with sugared water, from
a teaspoon.

"Johnny," cried she, "don't you touch his mouf any more! If you do, I
s'an't w'ip you, Johnny, but I'll sp'inkle some ashes on your head! Yes,
I will."

Johnny, heedless of the threat, tried again to force open Bunny's stiff
mouth, Dotty's beautiful eyes blazed.

Without a word she walked off proudly to the kitchen, and came back with
a handful of cold ashes, which she freely sifted into Johnny's flaxen
hair. Mrs. Parlin saw that it was high time to take her youngest
daughter home.

"O, mother," said Prudy, who always felt herself disgraced by her little
sister's bad conduct, "sometimes Dotty pretty nearly makes you cry!
Don't you almost wish you hadn't any such little girl?"

"My dear child, I am her _mother_, and she could hardly do anything so
naughty that I should cast her out of my heart. When she has these
freaks of temper, I think, 'God bears with me, and I will try to bear
with my little one. I will wait. One of these days, when her reason