'
'No, ma'am, I never do,' and Patty gave another little gasp, for the bun
lay very heavily on both stomach and conscience just then.
'A drop or two of ammonia will set you right,' and Aunt Pen gave her
some. It did set the stomach right, but the conscience still worried
her, for she could not make up her mind to 'fess' the sly, greedy thing
she had done.
'Put a white patch in the middle of those green ones,' said Aunt Pen, as
Patty sat soberly sewing her daily square.
'Why?' asked the little girl, for aunty seldom interfered in her
arrangement of the quilt.
'It will look pretty, and match the other three squares that are going
at the corners of that middle piece.'
'Well, I will,' and Patty sewed away, wondering at this sudden interest
in her work, and why Aunt Pen laughed to herself as she put away the
ammonia bottle.
These are two of the naughty little things that got worked into the
quilt; but there were good ones also, and Aunt Pen's sharp eyes saw them
all.
At the window of a house opposite, Patty often saw a little girl who sat
there playing with an old doll or a torn book. She never seemed to run
about or go out, and Patty often wondered if she was sick, she looked so
thin and sober, and was so quiet. Patty began by making faces at her
for fun, but the little girl only smiled back, and nodded so
good-naturedly that Patty was ashamed of herself.
'Is that girl over there poor?' she asked suddenly as she watched her
one day.
'Very poor: her mother takes in sewing, and the child is lame,' answered
Aunt Pen, without looking up from the letter she was writing.
'Her doll is nothing but an old shawl tied round with a string, and she
don't seem to have but one book. Wonder if she'd like to have me come
and play with her,' said Patty to herself, as she stood her own big doll
in the window, and nodded back at the girl, who bobbed up and down in
her chair with delight at this agreeable prospect.
'You can go and see her some day if you like,' said Aunt Pen, scribbling
away.
Patty said no more then, but later in the afternoon she remembered this
permission, and resolved to try if aunty would find out her good doings
as well as her bad ones. So, tucking Blanch Augusta Arabella Maud under
one arm, her best picture-book under the other, and gathering a little
nosegay of her own flowers, she slipped across the road, knocked, and
marched boldly upstairs.
Mrs. Brown, the sewing-woman, was out, and no
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