“Well, little sister,” said Prudy that evening, “how do you like going to school?”

“I don’t know anything about it; you ask too many questions,” replied the child, turning away suddenly.

“O, Dotty! I hope you haven’t been a bad girl. Did Miss Parker have to speak to you?”

“She spoke to me—yes; what you s’pose?”

“Did you and that little Penny girl whisper, Dotty?”

“Yes. She talked to the slate, but she meant me.”

“O, Dotty! And you answered back?”

“H’m, Prudy! D’you think I’se going to sit there and not say anything, and her a talking to me the whole time?”

“She’s going to act awfully, I’m afraid,” thought poor Prudy, who felt the whole care of her little sister on her own young shoulders.

“You didn’t twirl your hair, and talk in the class, Dotty?”

Dotty stooped to pick up a pin which was not on the carpet.

“O, Prudy! I’m going to get me some paper, and oil it, and put it over pictures, and it’ll draw splendid! With butter, you know! Shines through.”

Prudy saw the flush of shame on her sister’s cheeks, but did not know how keenly she was suffering.

“I wouldn’t tell Prudy how the girls laughed at me, and thought I was a nidiot. And the teacher too, I saw her laughing, inside of her sleeves. Every time I think of it I want to shut myself up in the closet.”

“How did you like your school, Alice,” said Mr. Parlin, as the family were all seated in the parlor after tea.

“Pretty well, sir,” answered Dotty, faintly. “There was a man came in and talked. He said he learned his letters with a whalebone. I mean his teacher snipped him with it.”

“It was the same man,” said Prudy, “that came up stairs and talked to us. I guess he was a printer, for he told a story, and he said, ‘The man approached the child, and found her weeping.’ If he hadn’t been a printer he wouldn’t have said that; he’d have said, ‘The man went up to the child and found she was crying.’”

“What do you mean by a printer, Prudy?”

“O, these men that write books, papa. They always use all the big words—don’t they?”

Dotty was much obliged to her kind sister for leading the conversation away from the primary school, for she had been afraid some one might strike in with an awkward question.

“O, dear! I hoped I was going to have the sore throat,” thought she, as she awoke next morning; “and then I could stay away from school. But nothing pleasant ever happens to me. When I want the sore throat, I can’t have it; and when I don’t want it, that’s the very time it comes.”

For several days Dotty continued to feel unhappy, and hardly dared play with the other little girls, lest they should laugh at her. But by degrees her sensitiveness wore away, and after practising on her lessons at home till she could read without stumbling over the hard words, she became the gayest of the gay.

She drew her sled to school nearly every day, for there was enough dirty snow and ice in the yard to afford a little coasting. Several of the other children had sleds, but Lina Rosenberg had none, and, remembering the former friendship between herself and Dotty, followed her like her shadow, begging for rides.

Dotty bore this for a while; but at last her patience gave way.

“Lina Rosenbug,” said she with dignity, “some days I can let you ride, and some days it may not be convenient for me to do so. I should devise you not to tease.”

Lina pouted.

“My mother says you’re a big-feeling little girl,” cried she. “You wouldn’t stay to my house; you ran home, and crawled into the cellar; you know you did.”

“Yes,” retorted Dotty, “’cause my mamma didn’t wish me to play with you, and I knew it. That’s why I’d rather stay down cellar. She said you betwitched me, Lina Rosenbug.”

Dotty was sorry, next minute, that she had spoken so unkindly.

“Now Lina never’ll speak to me again,” thought she. “Would I play with a little girl when her mamma said I betwitched her?”

But Dotty was quite mistaken. Lina had heard cross words all her little life, and was hardened to them. She clung to Miss Dimple only the more closely after this; which was a pity, for Dotty was really anxious to obey her mother, and keep away from the beguiling little Jewess.

Meanwhile Dotty was becoming rather intimate with her young seat-mate. She knew precisely how many dresses Tate had, and how many she expected to have; the names of her uncles and aunts; which were the good ones, that gave presents, and which were the cross ones, that made you shut the doors after you, and said, “O, she can skip up stairs and get my cap-box; she’s just big enough to run.”

In her turn Dotty related all her own adventures, both by sea and land, Tate listening with a quick twinkle of her large gray eyes, which was very encouraging.

Dotty did not spend all her time in whispering: she sometimes tried to study; but it was very hard to fix her thoughts. She would repeat a word again and again, and all the while be thinking of something else; or she would mean to look at her book, and, instead of that, find herself watching Miss Parker, or counting the buttons on some little girl’s frock.

Now, it happened that Miss Parker, though a fine teacher, and an excellent young lady, had one very foolish method; and it was this.

In the afternoon, before the school was dismissed, she asked the children to tell her if they had whispered during the day; and if they declared they had not, she smiled, and seemed very much pleased. All this would have been well enough, if the little creatures had told the truth; but, alas! they were so anxious for their teacher’s smile, that they often, very often, told falsehoods.

Miss Parker had no idea she was tempting them to do wrong. She believed every word they said. If she had been more observing, she might have known that the children, who looked so innocent, were really sad little chatterboxes. Dotty Dimple was amazed to see Tate’s hand go up every night in token that she had not whispered.

“Why, Tate,” said she one day, “you’re just as bad as Jennie Vance! She lies, ‘one to another,’ and so do you!”

Tate looked grieved.

“O, Dotty Dimple! I don’t do any such a thing!”

“But nights, when Miss Parker asks if we’ve whispered, you hold up your hand, Tate; and that’s the same as to say, you never!”

“But I don’t speak, Dotty Dimple. I shut my lips right together; and how CAN you tell a lie when you don’t tell anything?”

“Well,” said Dotty, hesitating, “p’raps it isn’t telling a lie, but it’s doing a lie. Miss Parker thinks you don’t whisper, and then she praises you. She never praises me, ’cause I keep my hand right down to my side. I’m a great deal better’n you are, Tate; but she doesn’t know it.”

“O, dear! I can’t help it,” said Tate, picking nervously at the wart on her thumb. “I don’t like to get scolded at.”

“Nor I either don’t,” responded Dotty. “Of course not—and her looking so sorry.”

“Then why don’t you hold up your hand?” said Tate. “She thinks you’re real bad. I’d hold it up, and she’ll like you a great deal better.”

“I want to dreadfully, Tate. I’d rather hold up my hand than eat a choclid cake.”

Dotty sighed as she spoke, and gazed sorrowfully at the beautiful teacher, whose love seemed so sweet and desirable.

“O, Tate! I’ve thought of something. S’pose now we try not to whisper.”

Tate looked up in her companion’s face to see if she was in earnest.

“Not whisper!”

“Yes; just one day.”

“Why, we couldn’t, Dotty; it’s just no use.”

“I’ll try if you will,” said Miss Dimple, anxiously, “’cause Miss Parker is a darling, and I want her to love me.”

“Well, you may try, Dotty Dimple, but I shan’t! I tried one day last summer, and it made me so hungry I like to died!”

Dotty said no more, but fell into a thoughtful mood.

O, how delightful it would be to have dear Miss Parker put her hand on her head, and say, with one of those beaming smiles,—

“This is my good little Dotty Dimple!”

How painful to hear her say, in a tone of displeasure,—

“Dotty, if you were only as good as Tate! Tate doesn’t whisper all day long. Why don’t you try to be like her?”

Ah, Miss Parker’s lovely brown eyes could not have been very far-sighted, and her pretty little ears, with the coral jewels in them, were not good for much, I am sure. Dotty scowled fiercely at Tate that night, as she saw her hand rising like a little white lie.

“She isn’t half so good as I am,” thought Dotty; “but Miss Parker doesn’t know it. To-morrow I’ll try not to whisper, and then she’ll call me a dear little girl, and it’ll be the truth.”

So to-morrow Dotty set out in earnest to be a good girl.

“Norah,” said she, going into the kitchen at half past eight, while Prudy was busy reading,—“Norah, is there any alum in the house?”

“Slippery alum, do you mean, Miss Dotty?”

“I don’t know. I guess it isn’t slippery. I want a little piece about so big,” said Dotty, exhibiting the ball of her thumb.

Norah took down a box from the highest shelf in the pantry, and, after searching a while, produced a bit of alum, and gave it to Dotty.

“But I can’t see what you want of it,” she said.

“Won’t you ever tell anybody, Norah? It’s to pucker up my mouth, so I shan’t whisper.”

Norah sat down upon the wood-box to laugh.

“Who put such a queer notion as that in your head, Miss Dotty?”

“O, heard my mamma say she ate some once, when she was a little girl, and it wrinkled her mouth all up, so she couldn’t talk; but don’t you tell.”

“No, I won’t tell; but if that is what you want it for, I shan’t dare give you so much; it might make you sick. Here’s a bit as big as a pea; it’s all you ought to have, Miss Dotty.”

The little girl put the precious morsel in her pocket, intending to eat it the last thing before she entered the school-room.