She sat down to practise a little, but her mind was out of doors, and the unwilling piano seemed crying out to be let alone.
"I can't play," said Susy, decidedly; "and that's the truth." At that moment a sweet little voice was heard, singing, "John's Brown buddy;" and Dotty Dimple's head and shoulders were thrust into the room.
"I've broked it," said she; "I've broked it all to smash." "Broke what, for pity's sakes ?" "Your teapot," replied Dotty, in a very cheerful voice.
"O, I never did, in all my life, see such a child," wailed Susy.

"What made you go and meddle with my dear little gold-edged tea-set ?" Dotty looked like an injured lamb, brushed the wayward hair out of her eyes, and gazed wistfully into her sister's face.
"Is I your little comfort, Susy?
Is I your little comfort ?" "No," cried Susy, wavering between a smile and a tear; "no, indeed! To think of _your_ being a comfort! O, my stars!" "Well, then," continued the little one, in a soothing, cooing tone, "then I never broked it; it broked itself!" So saying, she produced from the depths of her pocket the fragments of the gilt-edged toy.

They were past the healing power even of Spalding's glue, that was certain.

At the painful sight, poor Susy's patience flew into as many pieces as the teapot.
"O, you naughty, naughty thing, to say it broke itself!" "Then it didn't," replied the little culprit, not a whit dismayed.

"Then 'twas Prudy.