pose."

Lonnie ought to have come forward now, like a little gentleman, and
told the whole story; but he had run away.

"O, auntie," said Grace, "she wasn't to blame. It----"

"Don't say a word," said aunt Louise, briskly. "If she was my little
girl I'd have her sent to bed. That dress and apron ought to be
soaking this very minute."

Bridget listened at the foot of the stairs in a very angry mood,
muttering,--

"It's not much like the child's mother she is. A mother can pass it by
when the childers does such capers, and wait till they get more
sinse."

Poor little Susy had to go home in the noonday sun, hanging down her
head like a guilty child, and crying all the way. Some of the tears
were for her soiled clothes, some for her auntie's sharp words, and
some for the nice dinner she had left.

"O, aunt Madge," sobbed she, when they had got home, "I kept as far
behind aunt Louise as I could, so nobody would think I was her little
girl. She was ashamed of me, I looked so!"

"There, there! try not to cry," said aunt Madge, as she took off
Susy's soiled clothes.

"But I can't stop crying, I feel so bad. If there's any body gets into
a fuss it's always _me_! I'm all the time making some kind of trouble.
Sometimes I wish there wasn't any such girl as me!"

Tears came into aunt Madge's kind gray eyes, and she made up her mind
that the poor child should be comforted. So she quietly put away the
silk dress she was so anxious to finish, and after dinner took the
fresh, tidy, happy little Susy across the fields to aunt Martha's
again, where the unlucky day was finished very happily after all.

"The truth is, Louise," said aunt Madge that night, after their
return, "_Lonnie_ spilled that ink, and Susy was not at all to blame.
You scolded her without mercy for being careless, and she bore it all
because she would not break her promise to that cowardly boy."

"O, how unjust I have been!" said aunt Louise, who did not mean to be
unkind, in spite of her hasty way of speaking.

"You _have_ been unjust," said aunt Madge. "Only think what a trifling
thing it is for a little child to soil her dress! and what a great
thing to have her keep her word! Susy has a tender heart, and it
grieves her to be unjustly scolded; but she would bear it all rather
than tell a falsehood. For my part I am proud of such a noble,
truthful little niece."

CHAPTER XII

PRUDY TRYING TO HELP

Prudy awoke one morning full of mischief.