Dotty loved those gaiters as if they were alive.

She had a great contempt for the slippers she wore in the morning, but it was her "darlin' gaiters," which she put on in the afternoon, and loved next to father and mother, and all her best friends.
When ladies called, she stepped very briskly across the floor, looking down at her feet, and tiptoeing about, till the ladies smiled, and said, "O, what sweet little boots!" and then she was perfectly happy.
Susy was not very wide awake in the morning; but Dotty was stirring as soon as there was a peep of light, and usually stole into Susy's bed to have a frolic.

Nothing but a story would keep her still, and poor Susy often wondered which was harder, to be used as a football by Dotty, or to tell stories with her eyes shut.
"O, Dotty Dimple, keep still; can't you?
There's a darling," she would plead, longing for another nap; "_don't_ kill me." "No, no; me won't kill," the little one would reply; "'tisn't _pooty_ to kill!" "O, dear, you little, cunning, darling plague, now hush, and let me go to sleep!" Then Dotty would plant both feet firmly on Susy's chest, and say, in her teasing little voice, as troublesome as the hum of a mosquito,-- "Won't you tell me 'tory--tell me a 'tory--tell me a 'tory, Susy." "Well, what do you want to hear ?" Now, it was natural for Susy to feel cross when she was sleepy.

It cost her a hard struggle to speak pleasantly, and when she succeeded in doing so, I set it down as one of her greatest victories over herself.

The Quaker motto of her grandmother, "Let patience have her perfect work," helped her sometimes, when she could wake up enough to remember it.
"Tell 'bout little yellow gell," said the voice of the mosquito, over and over again.
Susy roused herself after the third request, and sleepily asked if something else wouldn't do?
"I had a little nobby-colt." "No, no, you _di'n't_, you _di'n't_; grandma had the nobby! Tell yellow gell." "O," sighed Susy, "how can you want to hear that so many, many times?
Well, once when I was a little bit of a girl--" "'Bout's big as me, you _said_," put in Dotty.
"O, yes, I did say so once, and I suppose I must tell it so every time, or you'll fuss! Well, I had a yellow dress all striped off in checks--" "Di'n't it go this way ?" said Dotty, smoothing the sheet with her little hand, "and this way ?" "What?
What ?" Susy roused herself and rubbed her eyes.