Page:The New-Year's Bargain (1884).djvu/98

 to romp in. I loved all of them, and they me but these last loved me best. We used to spend whole days out-doors together, playing 'I spy' and 'hide-and-seek' in the bushes. As a general thing, they were pretty good. There was an Anna Maria, to be sure, who slapped her little sister now and then; and one boy named Johnny who would climb trees after the robins' nests: so that I was forced at last to push him off a bough and sprain his ankle, to make him let them alone. But, on the whole, I was well satisfied with them. And my prime favorite—the roundest, jolliest, nicest, prettiest of all—was little Dotty Dexter.

"Dotty was six years old, the dearest, cunningest mite of a romp you ever saw, and at the same time a born housewife. All her life it had been so. When two years old, she used to take her small apron and trot round the nursery rubbing the furniture clean, as she had seen nurse do. She could only reach to the seats of the chairs, and about half way up the legs of the tables; but so far she always made