"Yes, Charlie," said she, at last; "you may have the milk, because I would like to oblige your mother; and you may tell her I will send it every night by the children."

Now, Mrs. Gray was the doctor's wife. She was a kind woman, and kept one closet shelf full of canned fruit and jellies for sick people; but for all that, the children did not like her very well. Prudy thought it might be because her nose turned up "like the nose of a tea-kettle;" but Susy said it was because she asked so many questions. If the little Parlins met her on the street when they went of an errand, she always stopped them to inquire what they had been buying at the store, or took their parcels out of their hands and felt them with her fingers. She was interested in very little things, and knew how all the parlors in town were papered and carpeted, and what sort of cooking-stoves everybody used.

Dotty hung her head when her grandmother said she wished her to go every night to Mrs. Gray's with a quart of milk.

"Must I?" said she. "Why, grandma, she'll ask me if my mother keeps a girl, and how many teaspoons we've got in the house; she will, honestly.

Mayn't somebody go with me?"

"Ask me will I go?" said Katie, "for I love to shake my head!"

"And, grandma," added Dotty, "Mrs. Gray's eyes are so sharp, why, they're so sharp they almost p.r.i.c.k! And it's no use for Katie to go with me, she's so little."

"O, I'm isn't _much_ little," cried Katie. "I's growing big."

"I should think Prudy might go," said Dotty Dimple, with her finger in her mouth; "you don't make Prudy do a single thing!"

"Prudy goes for the ice every morning," replied Mrs. Parlin. "I wish you to do as I ask you, Alice, and make no more remarks about Mrs. Gray."

"Yes, 'm," said Dotty in a dreary tone; "mayn't Katie come too? she's better than n.o.body."

Katie ran for her hat, delighted to be thought better than n.o.body. The milk was put into a little covered tin pail. Dotty watched Ruth as she strained it, and saw that she poured in not only a quart, but a great deal more. "Why do you do so?" said Dotty. "That's too much."

"Your grandmother told me to," replied Ruth, washing the milk-pail.

"She said 'Good measure, pressed down and running over.' That's her way of doing things."

"But I don't believe grandma 'spected you to press it down and run it _all_ over. Why, there's enough in this pail to make a pound of b.u.t.ter.

Come, Katie."

"Let me do some help," said the little one, catching hold of the handle, and making the pail much heavier. Dotty endured the weight as long as she could; then, gently pushing off the "little hindering" hand, she said,--

"And now, as we go along, we might as well be playing, Flyaway."

"Fwhat?"

"Playing a play, dear. We'll make believe you're the queen with a gold crown on your head."

Katie put her hand to her forehead.

"O, no, dear; you haven't anything on your head now but the broadest-brimmedest kind of a hat; we'll _call_ it a crown. And I'm the king that's married to you."

"O, yes, mallied."

"And we're going--going--"

"Rouspin," suggested Flyaway.

"No; great people like us don't go raspberrying. Sit down here, Queenie, under this acorn tree, and I'll tell you; we're going to the castle."

"O, yes, the ca.s.sil?"

"Where we keep our throne, dear, and our gold dresses."

"Does we have any gold dollies to the ca.s.sil?"

"O, yes, Queenie; all sizes."

"Does we have," continued Flyaway, winking slowly, "does we have--dip toast?"

"Why, Queenie, what should we want of that? Yes, we can have dip toast, I s'pose; the girl can make it on the gold stove, with a silver pie-knife. But we shall have nicer things than ever you saw."

"Nicer than turnipers?"

"Pshaw! turnovers are nothing, Queenie; we shall give them to the piggy.

We shall live on wedding cake and strawberries. Tea and coffee, and such low things, we shall give to ducks. O, what ducks they will be! They will sing tunes such as canaries don't know how. We'll give them our tea and coffee, and we'll drink--what d'ye call it? O, here's some."

Dotty took up the pail.

"You see how white it is; sugar frosting in it. Drink a little, it's so nice."

"It tastes just like moolly cow's milk," said Flyaway, wiping her lips with her finger.

"No," said Dotty, helping herself; "it's nectar; that's what Susy says they drink; now I remember."

"Stop!" said a small voice in the ear of Dotty's spirit; "that is what I should call taking other people's things."

"Poh!" said Dotty, sipping again; "it's grandpa's cow. When Jennie Vance takes cake, it's wicked, because--because it is. This is only play, you know."

Dotty took another draught.

"Come, Queenie," said she, "let's be going to the castle."

Katie sprang up so suddenly that she fell forward on her nose, and said her foot was "dizzy." It had been taking a short nap as she sat on the stump; but she was soon able to walk, and shortly the royal pair arrived at the castle, which was, in plain language, a wooden house painted white.

"So you have come at last," said Mrs. Gray, from the door-way. "They don't milk very early at your house--do they?"

"No, ma'am, not so _very_."

"Have you seen anything of my little Charlie?"

"No, ma'am, not since a great while ago,--before supper."

"How is your grandfather?"

"Pretty well, thank you, ma'am."

"No, gampa isn't," said Katie, decidedly; "he's deaf."

"And what about your Aunt Maria? Didn't I see her go off in the stage this morning?"