It was certainly very unkind in _some_ man that he hadn't married Miss Polly and taken care of her, so she need not have wandered around the world with a double-covered basket and a snuff-box.

It was a great pity; still Dotty could not see that just now it had anything to do with Polly's forgetting to set the table.

"I'm so hungry," said she; "isn't it 'most supper time ?" "It's only five; but you appear to be so lonesome that I'll make a fire this minute and put on the tea-kettle," replied the kind-hearted Polly.
"What does your grandmother generally have for supper ?" "Cake sometimes," answered Dotty, her eyes brightening; "and tarts." "And perjerves," added Katie; "and--and--yice puddin'." "She keeps the cake in a stone jar," said Dotty, eagerly; "and the strawberries are down cellar in a glass dish--cost a cent apiece." "The slips they grew from cost a cent apiece; that is what you mean," said Polly; "you hear things rather hap-hazard sometimes, Dotty, and you ought to be more careful." [Illustration: A DARK DAY .-- Page 154.] The tea-kettle was soon singing on the stove, and Dotty forgot her peculiar trials when she saw the table covered with dainties.

She was not sure grandma would have approved of the cake and tarts, but they were certainly very nice, and it was a pleasure to see how Polly enjoyed them.

Dotty presumed she had never had such things when she lived with the "hard-faced woman." "It wasn't everywhere," she said, "that she saw such thick cream as rose to the tops of Mrs.Parlin's pans." She poured it freely over the strawberries and into her own tea, which it made so delicious that she drank three cups.