r and spend the day with you
to-morrow. And tell her I say she'd better not bring her sewing, and
she'd better not wear her best dress, for you and she ain't goin' to sew
any, and mebbe you'll like to go berryin', and play out-doors."

THE LITTLE PERSIAN PRINCESS

"And you must spin faster, Dorothy, or you'll go to bed without your
supper," said Dame Betsy.

"Yes, ma'am," replied Dorothy. Then she twirled the wheel so fast that
the spokes were a blur.

Dorothy was a pretty little girl. She had a small pink-and-white face;
her hair was closely cropped and looked like a little golden cap, and
her eyes were as blue as had been the flowers of the flax which she was
spinning. She wore an indigo-blue frock, and she looked very short and
slight beside the wheel.

Dorothy spun, Dame Betsy tended a stew-kettle that was hanging from the
crane in the fire-place, and the eldest of Dame Betsy's six daughters
sat on the bench beside the cottage door and ate honey-cakes. The other
daughters had arrayed themselves in their best tuckers and plumed hats
and farthingales, spread their ruffled parasols, and gone to walk.

Dame Betsy had wished the oldest daughter to go with her sisters; but
she was rather indolent, so she dressed herself in her best, and sat
down on the bench beside the door, with a plate of honey-cakes of which
she was very fond. She held up her parasol to shield her face, and also
to display the parasol. It was covered with very bright green satin, and
had a wreath of pink roses for a border. The sun shone directly into the
cottage, and the row of pewter plates on the dresser glittered; one
could see them through the doorway. The front yard of Dame Betsy's
cottage was like a little grove with lemon-color and pink hollyhocks;
one had to look directly up the path to see the eldest daughter sitting
on the bench eating honey-cakes. She was a very homely girl. All Dame
Betsy's daughters were so plain and ill-tempered that they had no
suitors, although they walked abroad every day.

Dame Betsy placed her whole dependence upon the linen chests when she
planned to marry her daughters. At the right of her cottage stretched a
great field of flax that looked now like a blue sea, and it rippled like
a sea when the wind struck it. Dame Betsy and Dorothy made the flax into
linen for the daughters' dowries. They had already two great chests of
linen apiece, and they were to have chests filled until there were
enough to