“Seems as if the wind had blown out all the stars; but no matter—­is it?  It is all nice in the house.”

Then she dropped the curtain, and went to sit in her mother’s lap.  Not a word of reproach had been uttered by any one yet; for it was thought the child had suffered enough.

“Mamma,” said Dotty, laying her tired head on her mother’s bosom, “don’t you think I’m like the prodigal’s—­daughter?  Yesterday I felt a whisper ’way down in my mind,—­I didn’t hear it, but I felt it,—­and it said, ‘You mustn’t disobey your mamma; you mustn’t play with Lina Rosenberg!’”

“Only think, my child, if you had only paid attention to that whisper!”

“Yes, mamma, but I tried to forget it, and by and by I did forget it—­almost.  There’s one thing I know,” added Dotty, clasping her hands together; “I’ll never run away again.  If I’m going to, I’ll catch myself by the shoulder, and hold on just as hard!”

“My blessed child, I hope so,” said Mrs. Parfin, with tears in her eyes and a stronger faith in her heart than she had felt for many a day that Dotty really meant to do better.  “You don’t know how it did distress your papa and me to have you stay in that house a night and a day; but we hoped it would prove a lesson to you; we meant it for your best good.”

To make sure the lesson would not be forgotten, Prudy read her little sister a private lecture.  She had written it that afternoon with carmine ink, on the nicest of tinted paper.  Dotty received it very humbly, and laid it away in the rosewood box with her precious things.

* * * * *

PRUDY’S LECTURE.

“We must keep good company, Dotty, or not any at all.  This is a fact.

“Even an apple is known by the company it keeps.  Grandpa Parlin says if you put apples in a potato bin, they won’t taste like apples—­they’ll taste like potatoes.

“Sometimes I think, Dotty, you’d be as good and nice as a summer-sweeting, if you wouldn’t play with naughty children, like Lina Rosenberg; but if you do, you’ll be like a potato, as true as you live.

“Finis.”

CHAPTER IX.

THANKSGIVING DAY.

The next day was Thanksgiving.  Dotty wakened in such a happy mood that it seemed to her the world had never looked so bright before.

“I don’t think, Prudy, it’s the turkey and plum pudding we’re going to have that makes me so happy—­do you?”

“What is it, then, little sister?”

“O, it’s ’cause I dreamed I was sleeping on pin-feathers, and woke up and found I wasn’t.  You’d feel a great deal better, Prudy, if you’d run away and had such a dreadful time, and got home again.”

“I don’t want to try it,” returned Prudy, with a smile.

“No; but it’s so nice to be forgiven!” said Dotty, laying her hand on her heart, “it makes you feel so easy right in here.”