," said the soap-man; "so now we'll
proceed to business. You see I'm here with my wagon and barrels, and I
suppose you perceive that I've come for your bones!"

These whispered words fell on Prudy's ears with terrible force. A vague
terror seized her. "_I've come for your bones!_" What could he mean? Was
he an ogre, right out of a fairy-book? What did he want of that poor
woman's bones?

Without stopping to think twice, Prudy ran off with trembling haste, and
by the time the astonished soap-boiler missed her she had reached
Congress Street, and was still running.

The first thing she saw, as she entered her own door, was the fluttering
of Dotty's pink dress. The runaway was safe and sound. She had only
toddled off after a man with a basket of images, calling out, "baa,
baa," "moo, moo," "bow-wow." The end of it was, that the image man had
given her a toy lamb, for which she had said, "How do," instead of thank
you; and Florence Eastman had led her home.

Susy was heartily ashamed of her heedlessness.

"Now, mother," said she, "do you think, if I should be kept on bread and
water for a whole day, I should learn to remember? You'll never trust
Dotty with me again."

"Ah," said Mrs. Parlin, with a meaning smile; "the trouble is, Susy,
you've made up your mind that your memory is good for nothing: you
_expect_ to forget! I _shall_ trust you again, and you must fully
resolve to do better."

Dotty was very proud of her "baa, baa," and insisted upon putting it in
her bathing tub every morning, and scrubbing it with her own hands.

Everybody laughed at Prudy's wild story of the soap-boiler.

"We were tired, my feet and I," said she, between laughing and crying;
"but I never'd have rode with that whispering man if I'd known he was a
_bone man_!"

CHAPTER III.

DOTTY'S VERSES.

By the time Alice Parlin was three years old she could prattle like a
bobolink, and thought herself quite as old and wise as either of her
sisters. Every Sunday morning it made her very wretched to see Susy and
Prudy set out, with bright faces, for Sabbath school!

"Mayn't me go, too?" said she, plaintively. "Me's got the coop; _must_
go to Sabber school!"

"O," replied Prudy, snatching a kiss from her pouting lips, "if you've
got the croup you certainly can't go."

Dotty shook her curls. "Coop's went off now. Dotty'll go, all o' _you_."

"O, no, little sister; you'll stay at home and look at your pictures.
That's the way _I_ d