“Blessings on the blessed children!” said aunt Madge, one morning soon after this.  “So we little folks are going out to spend the day, are we?”

“Yes’m,” replied Grace, “all but Horace.”

“Yes,” said Prudy, dancing in high glee, “grandma wants me to go, and I’m goin’.  I mean to do every single thing grandma wants me to.”

“I wish you could go with us, aunt Madge,” said Grace, almost pouting; “we don’t have half so good times with aunt Louise.”

“No, we don’t,” cried Prudy; “she wants us to ‘take care’ all the time.  She don’t love little girls when she has ‘the nervous.’”

Almost while they were talking, their aunt Louise came into the room, looking prettier than ever in her new pink dress.  She was a very young lady, hardly fifteen years old.

“Come, Prudy,” said she, smiling, “please run up stairs and get my parasol ­there’s a darling.”

But Prudy was picking a pebble out of her shoe, and did not start at once.

“Ah!” said aunt Louise, drawing on her gloves, “I see Prudy isn’t going to mind me.”

“Well, don’t you see me getting up out of my chair?” said Prudy.  “There now, don’t you see me got clear to the door?”

“O dear,” said poor aunt Louise to her sister, “what shall I do all this long day with three noisy children?  I’m afraid some of them will get drowned, or run over, or break their necks.  You see if something awful doesn’t happen before we get back.”

“O, I hope not,” replied sister Madge, laughing.  “I think there is nothing so very wicked about our little nieces.”

“Here is your parasol, auntie,” said Prudy, coming back.  “I know who I love best of any body in this house, and it ain’t the one that’s got her bonnet on ­it’s a-r-n-t, aunt, M-i-g, Madge.”

“Well, you ought to love your aunt Mig, all of you,” said aunt Louise, laughing, “for I do believe she thinks you children are as lovely as little white rose-buds. ­Come, are you all ready?  Then run along, and I’ll follow after.”

“O, I’m so glad I’m alive!” cried little Prudy, hoping on one foot; “I do hope I shall never die!”

“I just mean to be careful, and not get a speck of dirt on my clean apron,” whispered Susy to Grace.  “Aunt Madge ironed it this morning.”

They had such a pleasant walk through the streets of the beautiful village, in the “sunshine, calm and sweet!” Grace thought the trees met overhead just as if they were clasping hands, and playing a game of “King’s Cruise” for every body to “march through.”

When they had almost reached aunt Martha’s house, aunt Louise stopped them, saying, ­

“Now, tell me if you are going to be good children, so I shan’t be ashamed of you?”

“Why, yes, auntie,” said Grace, looking quite grieved and surprised.

“O, auntie,” said Susy, “did you think we were going to be naughty?”

“No, you’ll mean to be good, I dare say,” answered aunt Louise, speaking more kindly, ­“if you don’t forget it.  And you’ll be a nice, dear little girl, won’t you, Prudy?”

“I don’t know,” said Prudy, coolly.

“Don’t know?  Why, do you think I should have taken you visiting if I hadn’t supposed you’d try to be good?”

“Well, I didn’t say I wouldn’t,” said Prudy, with some dignity, “I said ‘I don’t know,’ and when I say that, I mean ‘yes.’”

“Well, I’m sure I hope you’ll do the very best you can,” sighed aunt Louise, “and not make any body crazy.”

By this time they had gone up the nice gravel walk, and aunt Martha had come to the door, opening her arms as if she wanted to embrace them all at once.

“Dear little souls,” said she, “come right into the house, and let me take off your things.  I’ve been looking for you these two hours.  This is my little nephew, Lonnie Adams. ­Shake hands with the little girls, my dear.”

Lonnie was a fair-haired, sickly little boy, seven years old.  The children very soon felt at ease with him.

It was so pleasant in aunt Martha’s shaded parlor, and the children took such delight in looking at the books and pictures, that they were all sorry when aunt Louise “got nervous,” and thought it was time they went off somewhere to play.

“Very well,” said dear aunt Martha; “they may go all over the house and grounds, if they like, with Lonnie.”

So all over the house and grounds they went in a very few minutes, and at last came to a stand-still in Bridget’s chamber over the kitchen, tired enough to sit down a while ­all but Prudy, who “didn’t have any kind of tiredness about her.”

“Look here, Prudy Parlin,” said Grace, “you mustn’t open that drawer.”

“Who owns it?” said Prudy, putting in both hands.

“Why, Bridget does, of course.”

“No, she doesn’t,” said Prudy, “God owns this drawer, and he’s willing I should look into it as long as I’m a mind to.”

“Well, I’ll tell aunt Louise, you see if I don’t.  That’s the way little Paddy girls act that steal things.”

“I ain’t a stealer,” cried Prudy.  “Now, Gracie Clifford, I saw you once, and you was a-nippin’ cream out of the cream-pot. You’re a Paddy! ­O, here’s a ink-stand!”

“Put it right back,” said Susy, “and come away.”

“Let me take it,” cried Lonnie, seizing it out of Prudy’s hand, “I’m going to put it up at auction.  I’m Mr. Nelson, riding horseback,” said he, jumping up on a stand.  “I’m ringin’ a bell.  ’O yes!  O yes!  O yes!  Auction at two o’clock!  Who’ll buy my fine, fresh ink?’”

“Please give it to me,” cried Grace; “it isn’t yours.”

“‘Fresh ink, red as a lobster!’”

“This minute!” cried Grace.

“‘As green as a pea!  Who’ll bid?  Going!  Going!’”

“Now, do give it to me, Lonnie,” said Susy, climbing into a chair, and reaching after it; “you ain’t fair a bit.”

“’Do you say you bid a bit?  That’s a ninepence, ma’am.  It’s yours; going, gone for a ninepence.  Knocked off to Miss Parlin.’”

Somehow, in “knocking it off,” out came the stopper, and over went the ink on Susy’s fair white apron.  Lonnie was dreadfully frightened.

“Don’t tell that I did it!” cried he.  “You know I didn’t mean any harm.  Won’t you promise not to tell?”

“Yes, I will,” said Susy; but she ought not to have promised any such thing.

“O, dear, O dear!  What is to be done?”

Little black streams were trickling down the apron on to the dress.  Grace pulled Susy to the washing-stand, and Prudy thought she meant to lift her into it, and tried to help.

“I guess this honey soap will take it out,” said Susy; but with all their washing and rinsing they could not make black white any more than the poor negro who scoured his face.

“Stop a minute!” cried Grace.  “Soap makes it worse ­ma puts on milk.”

“O dear!  I wish we had some,” said Susy; “how can we get it?”

“I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” said Grace; “we’ll send Prudy down stairs to Bridget, to ask for some milk to drink.”

“I like milk and water the best,” said Prudy, “with sugar in.”

“Well, get that,” said Grace, “it’s just as good; and come right back with it, and don’t tell about the ink.”

Aunt Martha and Bridget were taking up the dinner when Prudy went down into the kitchen, calling out, ­

“O, Bridget, may I have some white tea?”

“White tay!” said Bridget; “and what may that be now?”

“O, some white tea, in a cup, you know, with sugar.  They let me have it every little once in a while.”

“Milk and water, I suppose,” said aunt Martha.  “Can’t you wait till dinner, my dear?”

“But the girls can’t wait,” replied Prudy; “they want it now.”

“O, it’s for the girls, is it?”

“Yes, but when they’ve washed the apron I can drink the rest ­with white sugar in.”

“The apron!” said aunt Martha, “what apron?”

“O, nothing but Susy’s.  I told grandma I’d be good, and I did be good; it wasn’t me spilled the ink.”

“Ink spilled?” cried aunt Martha, and she stopped beating the turnip.

“O, I ain’t goin’ to tell!” cried Prudy, beginning to tremble; “I didn’t, did I? they won’t ’low me to tell.”

Aunt Louise, passing through the kitchen, caught some of the last words, and rushed up stairs, two steps at a time.

“O, Susy Parlin, you naughty, naughty child, what have you been into?  Who spilled that ink?”

“It got tipped over,” answered Susy, in a fright, but not forgetting her promise.

“Of course it got tipped over ­but not without hands, you careless girl!  Do you get your shaker, and march home as quick as ever you can!  I must go with you, I suppose.”

Lonnie ought to have come forward now, like a little gentleman, and told the whole story; but he had run away.

“O, auntie,” said Grace, “she wasn’t to blame.  It ­”

“Don’t say a word,” said aunt Louise, briskly.  “If she was my little girl I’d have her sent to bed.  That dress and apron ought to be soaking this very minute.”

Bridget listened at the foot of the stairs in a very angry mood, muttering, ­

“It’s not much like the child’s mother she is.  A mother can pass it by when the childers does such capers, and wait till they get more sinse.”

Poor little Susy had to go home in the noonday sun, hanging down her head like a guilty child, and crying all the way.  Some of the tears were for her soiled clothes, some for her auntie’s sharp words, and some for the nice dinner she had left.

“O, aunt Madge,” sobbed she, when they had got home, “I kept as far behind aunt Louise as I could, so nobody would think I was her little girl.  She was ashamed of me, I looked so!”

“There, there! try not to cry,” said aunt Madge, as she took off Susy’s soiled clothes.

“But I can’t stop crying, I feel so bad.  If there’s any body gets into a fuss it’s always me!  I’m all the time making some kind of trouble.  Sometimes I wish there wasn’t any such girl as me!”

Tears came into aunt Madge’s kind gray eyes, and she made up her mind that the poor child should be comforted.  So she quietly put away the silk dress she was so anxious to finish, and after dinner took the fresh, tidy, happy little Susy across the fields to aunt Martha’s again, where the unlucky day was finished very happily after all.

“The truth is, Louise,” said aunt Madge that night, after their return, “Lonnie spilled that ink, and Susy was not at all to blame.  You scolded her without mercy for being careless, and she bore it all because she would not break her promise to that cowardly boy.”

“O, how unjust I have been!” said aunt Louise, who did not mean to be unkind, in spite of her hasty way of speaking.

“You have been unjust,” said aunt Madge.  “Only think what a trifling thing it is for a little child to soil her dress! and what a great thing to have her keep her word!  Susy has a tender heart, and it grieves her to be unjustly scolded; but she would bear it all rather than tell a falsehood.  For my part I am proud of such a noble, truthful little niece.”