"Susan, I hope thee'll receive this new sister as a gift from God," said
grandma Read, wiping her spectacles.

"It seems so funny," said Susy, gently stroking the baby's face; "so
funny for me to have a new sister."

"Now you've tolled a story, Susy Parlin; she was sended to me,--isn't I
the littlest?" cried bruised and battered Prudy, shaking with another
tempest of tears, and kissing the baby violently.

"O, mamma! O, grandma," said Susy, clasping her hands in alarm, "don't
let her kiss that soft baby so hard! She'll draw the blood right
through her cheeks."

The nurse who was a smiling woman, with a wart on her nose, began to
frown a little, and grandma Read, patting Prudy's head, whispered to her
that if she did not stop crying she must leave the room, as the noise
she made disturbed her mother.

"Then I'll--I'll be--just as good as a lady, and I won't kiss her no
more," replied little Prudy between her sobs, at the same time prying
open baby's mouth with her busy fingers.

"Why, where's her teef? When you goin' to put in her teef?"

"O," said Susy, in an ecstasy, "isn't she such a velvet darling? What
cunning little footsie-tootsies! Shaped just like a flatiron! But I
haven't seen her eyes yet."