Page:The New-Year's Bargain (1884).djvu/99

 them shine till you could almost see your face in them.

"Dotty had an admirer. He was one year older than she, and his name was Willy Pringle. She loved him very much, partly because he had a jacket with two pockets, and gilt buttons down the front, and partly because when his mamma gave him any gum-drops he always brought her half of them to suck. So when he asked, 'Would she be his little wife?' she said she would.

"Down the village street stood a queer little house, which nobody lived in. Once it had been painted brown; but the paint had rubbed off, and now it was all yellow and spotty. The door wasn't locked, because doors never were locked in that place; and one day Willy and Dotty opened it, and strayed in to take a look.

"It was a most beautiful house. There was a hall, with an upstairs and a downstairs to it. The upstairs went to the bed-rooms, and the downstairs to the cellar. There were two rooms,—a parlor and a kitchen; and two bed