Without a word she walked off proudly to the kitchen, and came back with
a handful of cold ashes, which she freely sifted into Johnny's flaxen
hair. Mrs. Parlin saw that it was high time to take her youngest
daughter home.

"O, mother," said Prudy, who always felt herself disgraced by her little
sister's bad conduct, "sometimes Dotty pretty nearly makes you cry!
Don't you almost wish you hadn't any such little girl?"

"My dear child, I am her _mother_, and she could hardly do anything so
naughty that I should cast her out of my heart. When she has these
freaks of temper, I think, 'God bears with me, and I will try to bear
with my little one. I will wait. One of these days, when her reason
grows, she will be a real blessing to us all.'"

Mrs. Parlin proceeded to put on Dotty's outer wrappings, saying she must
be taken home. The child struggled and screamed, and declared she
"_would_ be good, she _would_ be a comfort;" but her mother was firm,
though her sweet temper never for a moment forsook her. Susy and Prudy
looked on, and learned a lesson in patience which was worth twenty
lectures.

Percy Eastman was as glad to carry his spirited little cousin back as he
had been to bring her to his house. Mrs. Parlin rode too; but Susy and
Prudy walked.

When they came to the tree which contained the birds' nest, Prudy parted
the branches, but the nestlings were not to be seen; the mother-bird had
gathered them under her wings, out of sight.

"Hush!" whispered Susy; "hear them peep! Let's go; we'll frighten the
old birdie out of her wits."

"I wish you could see them, Susy; then you'd know how cunning they are;
and now you never'll know. But it doesn't seem a bit like orphan
children since their mother's got home."

"Makes me think of _our_ mamma, and _her_ three little children," said
Susy, taking her sister's hand.

"Yes," said Prudy, her face radiant with a glow of love, warm from her
heart; "how good our mother always is, and always was, before ever our
_reasons_ grew! Think what we'd do this night, Susy Parlin, if there
wasn't any _mother_ to our house!"

CHAPTER V.

FANNY HARLOW'S PARTY.

"Kiss me, little sister," said Prudy, "and let me go, for I must get
ready for the party."

"I know where you're goin'," said Dotty; "why can't I go too?"

Little did innocent Prudy dream of the queer thoughts which were chasing
one another in her little sister's brain. After she and Susy had gone,
and the hou