"My little Toddlekins is eating nothing." said the doctor. "I hope her red cheeks don't indicate fever."

"There's great quant.i.ties of sickness just now among children," said Lady Magnifico, crooking her little finger genteelly. "_Nervous Exhaustation_ is going about."

"Nervous what, my lady?"

"_Exhaustation_. I am well acquainted with a lady in the first society that had it dreadfully. She called in twenty-five doctors, if my memory _preserves_ me right; and _then_ she like to died."

"You know it for a fact, my lady? I hope it won't come here (or the doctors either). Is it catching, Dr. Moonshine?"

"Well, yes, Mother Hubbard; it's apt to catch fine ladies. Goes hard with 'em, too."

"Ah me, then I'll never dare go out," drawled Lady Magnifico, looking at her rings.

Here Mother Hubbard timidly pa.s.sed the cake. "White Mountain; but I suspect it's a poor rule."

"A poor rule that don't work both ways, hey? If this was ever white, ma'am, 'twasn't a fast color; faded to a rusty black. And as to it's being a mountain, ma'am, it looks to me like a pretty hollow valley."

"I'm so sorry, doctor! But your little girl dusted my soda over the cat, and that was why the cake didn't rise."

"Just so, ma'am; but did the cat rise?"

"O, Dr. Moonshine, I see you're making fun of my cooking. And now I'll tell you something more. I got the b.u.t.ter ready, and forgot to put it in, and that's why the cake's so tough."

"Never mind," said the doctor, very amiable as long as he could make his joke. "It is pretty tough cake, ma'am; but it's always tougher where there's none."

"There's one thing about it," said Mother Hubbard, a little relieved; "it's sweet in the middle, and you needn't eat the bitter part, where it's burnt."

"It's my practice to mix the bitter with the sweet," said the doctor, waving the b.u.t.ter-knife. "In this way, Mother H., your black-valley cake is almost as good as pills."

"I ate a pill," observed Fly, "and 'twas worser'n this!"

"You ate a pill, child? When? Where? I'll warrant that's what ails you."

"No, it don't ail me now. I spitted it out."

After nibbling a few crackers, and the inside of the cake, the happy family moved away from the table, hungrier than when they had sat down.

"What is home without a mother?" sang Horace, in a plaintive voice; and Dotty joined in, with emphasis.

Prudy looked as low-spirited as the "black-valley cake."

"I hope Uncle Augustus will be able to come home to-morrow. I declare, we are real cruel not to feel worse about his being sick away off there in a hotel."

"You'd better believe he gets things to eat," responded Lady Magnifico, aside to the doctor. "I'd rather be some sick than have a landlady that's purblind and _purdeaf_, and such _owdrageous_ poor cooking! Glad I'm going out to Christmas dinner."

CHAPTER VI.

PRUDY IN A NEW LIGHT.

Mother Hubbard was heated, and tired, and hungry, and cross. It was all very well for a lady boarder to loll on an ottoman, play with her rings, and find fault. It was all very well for a gentleman boarder to fire poor jokes; but they couldn't either of them know how every word cut like a lash. When the doctor said, carelessly, "Some people think themselves great cooks, my lady; but the proof of the pudding's in the eating," why, that speech was "the pin in the end of the lash."

Prudy saw now that she had pretended to know a great deal more than she really did. Pretension is very apt to get laughed at. She had always scorned Dotty's self-conceit; but hadn't she shown quite as much herself? Making her auntie suppose she understood cooking, and putting Mrs. Fixfax to all this trouble for nothing? How horrified auntie would be, and the housekeeper too, if they should dream that this little family was starving, with a cook-book lying open on the floor!

"But I declare, it's real mean in you two to make fun of me," cried the young landlady, tipping the sugar-basin plump into the dish-tub; "you couldn't get any better supper yourselves, nor half so good; so there!"

Surprised at the sharp sound of her own voice, dismayed at sight of the wet sugar, and completely discouraged by the aspect of things in general, Prudy burst out into a sort of frenzy. She was ashamed of herself, but she couldn't stop.

"You think I can bear everything--you and Dotty both! People are careful what they say to Dotty, for her temper's just like live coals; but they talk to me, and say anything; anything they've a mind to."

"Why, Prue," exclaimed Horace, as astonished as if Mother Hubbard's dog had spoken; "why, Prue!"

"Yes, you think it's awful if I speak; but sometimes it seems as if I should bite my tongue out."

"Don't, Prudy," exclaimed Dotty, looking on with awe and alarm, as if there had been a sudden eclipse of the sun; "I didn't mean to."

"Don't Prudy," said Fly, clutching at the brown dress; "and I'll give you sumpin what I buy."

There is an old saying, "Beware the fury of a patient man." Prudy had tried all day to

"Smile and smile, While secret wounds were eating at her heart;"

but now she could scarcely bear the touch of little Fly's hand. She did not care what she said, if she could only find words bitter enough.

"I always have to bear, and bear, and bear. n.o.body else does. I've noticed how different it is with Susy. She frets, and then people let her alone. And Dotty, how she tosses up her head like Aunt Martha's horse Lightning-Dodger! Haven't I always pacified Dotty, and humored her? Had to alter the play to suit her. And what does that child know or care, any more than if I was a common sister, that hadn't been giving up, and giving up, and _giving up_, ever since she was born?"

Prudy's cap-strings shook violently, her teeth chattered, and the sharp words seemed to rattle out like hail-stones. Horace had never seen her in such a mood, and was half inclined to run away; but when she took her hands down from her face, and he saw how pale she was, his heart was moved.

"Come, Prue, you're sick abed; that's what's the matter. Lie down, and let that lazy Dot take off her diamonds, and go to work."

Prudy dropped upon the sofa and covered her face with her handkerchief, while Dotty, strange to relate, actually slid the rings off her fingers and thumbs, and began to put away the crackers.

"O, dear," thought Prudy, blushing under the cap-border, spectacles, and handkerchief; "what did possess me to talk so? I had been holding in all day; why did I let go? If I ever do let go, I can't stop; and O, how shameful it is!"

It seemed as easy for Prudy to be good as for a bird to sing; but it was not so. She had a great deal of human nature, after all. She liked her own way, but she never had it unless Dotty was willing. Was that a pleasant way to live? If you think so, dears, just try it. The secret of Prudy's sweetness was really this: In all trials she was continually saying, under breath, "Please, G.o.d, keep me from doing wrong." She had found that was really the only way--the only _safe_ way.

"Everybody calls me amiable. They wouldn't if they knew how I have to grit my teeth together to keep from scolding. I like to be called amiable, but n.o.body'll do it again; and Horace sees now I'm not the girl he thought I was."

All Prudy's hail-stones of wrath had melted into tear-drops, and she was sobbing them into her handkerchief. She did not clearly know whether she was crying because she had done wrong, or because Horace would see she "was not the girl he had thought she was."

"Bless your dear little soul," said Dr. Moonshine, kneeling before her, while his blue swallow-tails swept the floor, "you've told the truth.

Everybody knows Dot's a spitfire, and you're an angel; and she does impose upon you most abominably."

Dotty stood staring, with a plate in her hand, too much astonished to defend herself.

"And I'm ashamed of firing so many jokes at you, Prue; I am so. I'm a great joker (he meant a great _wit_!), but this is the first time I ever mistrusted you cared--you always take things so like a lamb,--or you'd better believe I wouldn't have done it. For there isn't a girl in the world I like so well as I do you, nor begin to."