le. Dotty did not know
where to look for any tea-pot except the very best one, which stood on
a shelf in the china closet; that she brought and set on the stove,
empty.

"Let me go too, let me go too!" cried she, as Polly was walking out with
the milk-pails.

The daisies, with "their little lamps of dew," seemed still asleep, and
so did all the "red-mouthed flowers" in the garden. The cows looked up
with languid surprise at sight of their visitors, but offered no
objections to being milked. Dotty gave one hasty peep at the white hen
sitting on the venerable duck's eggs; but the hen seemed offended. Dotty
ran away, and took a survey of the "green gloom" of the trees, in the
midst of which was suspended the swing, looking now as melancholy as a
gallows.

"O, what a dreadful night this is!" thought the child, standing bolt
upright, lest she should fall asleep. "Where's the sun? He hasn't taken
off his red silk night cap. He hasn't got back from China yet. Only
think,--if he shouldn't come back at all! I heard somebody say, the
other day, the world was coming to an end. Miss Polly," said she, aloud,
re-entering the barn, "isn't this the longest night you ever saw in all
the days of your life?"

"Yes, it has been considerable long, I am free to confess," replied
Polly, who thought she had had a very hard time keeping house, as was
indeed the truth.

"Do you s'pose, Miss Polly, that some morning the sun won't rise any
more?"

"O, yes," replied Miss Polly, who was always ready with a hymn:--

"'God reigns above,--he reigns alone;
Systems burn out, and leave His throne.'

"Why, yes, dear; the world will certainly come to an end one of these
days; and _then_ the sun won't rise, of course; there won't be any
sun."

And Miss Polly began to hum one of her sorrowful tunes, beating time
with the two streams of milk which dripped mournfully into the pail.

"She is afraid this is the end of the world," thought Dotty, with a
throbbing heart, and a stifling sensation at the throat; "she don't
believe the sun is ever going to rise any more."

The music suddenly ceased.

"These are very poor cows," said Polly, in a reflective tone; "or else
they don't give down their milk. I understood you to say, Dotty, that
Ruth milked very early."

"If everything's coming to an end, it's no wonder the cows act so," said
Dotty, to herself, but she dared not say it aloud.

They went into the house, the trail of Su