from school and was shown the box. It was only about six
inches square and it had a card tied to it addressed to both her and
Tess. Dot eyed it with the roundest of round eyes, when she heard who
had brought it.

"Why don't you open it, child?" demanded Aunt Sarah, who chanced to be
downstairs. "Bring it here and I'll snip the string for you with my
scissors."

"Oh! I couldn't, Aunt Sarah!" Dot declared.

"Why not, I should admire to know?" snapped the old lady. "It's not too
heavy for you to carry, I should hope?"

"Oh, no, ma'am. But I can't open it till Tess comes," said Dot.

"Why not, I should admire to know?" repeated Aunt Sarah, in her jerky
way.

"Why, it wouldn't be fair," said the smallest Corner House girl,
gravely.

"Huh!" snorted the old lady.

"Tess wouldn't do that to me," Dot said, with assurance.

Agnes chanced to get home next. "What ever do you s'pose is in it,
Dottums?" she cried. "There's no name on it except yours and Tess'. And
the doctor brought it!"

"Yes. But I know it isn't pills," declared Dot, seriously.

"How do you know that?" laughed Agnes.

"The box is too big," was the prompt reply. "He brings pills in just the
_cunningest_ little boxes."

"Maybe it's charlotte russe," suggested Agnes. "They put them in boxes
like this at the bakery."

"Oh! do you think so?" gasped Dot, scarcely able to contain herself.

"If they are charlotte rushings," chuckled Neale, who had brought home
Agnes' books for her, "be careful and not be so piggish as the country
boy who ate the pasteboard containers as well as the cake and cream of
the charlotte russe. He said he liked them fine, only the crust was
tough."

"Mercy!" ejaculated Agnes. "That's like a boy."

"I _do_ hope Tess comes pretty quick!" murmured Dot. "I--I'm just about
going crazy!"

Tess came finally; but at first she was so excited by something that had
happened in school that she could not listen to Dot's pleading that she
should "come and look at the box."

Of course, Sammy Pinkney was in difficulties with the teacher again. And
Tess could not see for once why he should be punished.

"I'm sure," she said earnestly, "Sammy did his best. And I brought the
composition he wrote home for you to see, Ruthie. Sammy dropped it out
of his book and I will give it to him to-morrow.

"But Miss Pepperill acted just like she thought Sammy had misbehaved
himself. She said she hoped she hadn't a 'humorist in embryo' in her
class.