Little Prudy's Dotty Dimple

"My little sister," cried Prudy, in breathless haste. "She had on a pink dress, and curls bareheaded."

"We have seen no such child pass this way," replied the girl, civilly. Prudy's eager face fell.

"I supposed likely as not you hadn't," said the soap-man; "so now we'll proceed to business. You see I'm here with my wagon and barrels, and I suppose you perceive that I've come for your bones!"

These whispered words fell on Prudy's ears with terrible force. A vague terror seized her. "_I've come for your bones!_" What could he mean? Was he an ogre, right out of a fairy-book? What did he want of that poor woman's bones?

Without stopping to think twice, Prudy ran off with trembling haste, and by the time the astonished soap-boiler missed her she had reached Congress Street, and was still running.

The first thing she saw, as she entered her own door, was the fluttering of Dotty's pink dress. The runaway was safe and sound. She had only toddled off after a man with a basket of images, calling o