concert at school. Don't you know,--

'Tremendous torrents! For an instant hush!'

Isn't that splendid?"

"Very splendid, indeed," replied Prudy, pinching herself to keep awake.

"I think Torrence is _such_ a nice name," pursued Dotty; "don't you tell
anybody but when I'm married and have some boys, I'm going to name some
of them Torrence."

"Not more than one, Dotty!"

"O, no, I couldn't; could I? There mustn't but one of them have the same
name; I forgot. 'Tremendous Torrence!' I shall say; and then he'll come
in and ask, 'What do you want, mother?'"

Prudy suddenly hid her face under the sheet. The absurdity of little
Dotty's ideas had driven the sleep out of her eyes.

"It would do very well for a name for a very queer boy," said she,
stifling a laugh; "but a torrent _generally_ means the Niagara Falls."

"Does it?" said Dotty; "who told you so? But I guess I shall call him by
it just the same though--if his father is willing."

Dotty looked very much interested.

"What will you call the rest of your boys?" asked Prudy, glad to talk
of anything which kept her little sister pleasant.

"I shan't have but two boys, and I shall name the other one for his
father," replied Dotty, thoughtfully; "I shall have eight girls, for I
like girls very much; and I shall dress them in silk and velvet, with
gold rings on their fingers, a great deal handsomer than Jennie Vance's;
but they won't be proud a bit. They never will have to be punished; for
when they do wrong I shall look through my spectacles and say, 'Why, my
eight daughters, I am very much surprised!' And then they will obey me
in a minute."

"Yes," returned Prudy; "but don't you think now we'd better go to
sleep?"

"No, indeed," said Dotty, drawing herself up in a little heap and
holding her throbbing foot in her hand; "if you don't make poetry I'm
going to make it myself. Hark!--

'Once there was a little boy going down hill;
He leaped, he foamed, he struggled; and all was o'er.'

"Do you call that poetry?" said Prudy, laughing. "Why, where's the
rhyme?"

"The rhyme? I s'pose I forgot to put it in. Tell me what a rhyme is,
Prudy; _maybe_ I don't know!"

"A rhyme," replied her wise sister, "is a jingle like this: 'A boy and a
toy,' 'A goose and a moose.'"

"O, is it? how queer! 'A hill and a pill,' that's a rhyme, too."

"Now," continued Prudy, "I'll make up some real poetry, and show you
how. It won't take me more