It had been a hard journey for the poor little thing. She was soon nicely bathed and put in a comfortable bed, where, for about at minute, she lay wondering at the mosquito-bar, and then forgot all her trials in sleep. Next morning, Horace asked what she had dreamed. "O," said Prudy, much refreshed, "I slept so fast I never heard my dreams. There, aunt Ria, you know Mrs. Mason, that gave Susy the bird? She's dead: I thought you'd be glad to hear that!" "I didn't know the lady," said Mrs. Clifford, smiling; "yet I am not glad she is dead." Prudy was constantly espying wonders. Her fear of pigs was extreme, and the whole Ohio valley seemed to her one vast pig-pen without any fence. The creatures had such long noses, too! From a safe distance, Prudy liked to watch them cracking nuts. She thought they could not have picked out the meats better if they had been gifted with fingers. She wandered with Grace and Cassy about the beautiful garden and green-house in a maze of delight. She might have been too happy if the mosquitos had not laid plans to devour her. Grace bathed the poor child in camphor. "It hurts," said Prudy, the quiet bears rolling down her cheeks; "but Gracie bathes me for my good, and I won't cry. O, aunt Ria, when I'm naughty, and you want to punish me, you can just put me to bed, and let the skeeters bite me." Owing to the savage conduct of these bloodthirsty creatures, there was no trace left of Prudy's beauty, except what Horace called her "killing little curls." Grace was disappointed, for she had hoped to exhibit her charming cousin to great advantage. However, the mosquito-hills disappeared from her face in time, and then Prudy was quite "a lioness," as Horace said. The princesses admitted her to their social meetings. All they did now was, to state that they had read the required amount of Scripture, had told no wrong stories, and used no language which they regarded as unladylike. For the present, they met and played games, intending during holidays to begin work for the soldiers in earnest. When Prudy visited the school, she sat with every one of the Princesses in turn, and liked them all but the discarded member of the society, Isa Harrington. In private, she told Grace that Isa looked "like the woman that killed the man," meaning Lady Macbeth, whose face she had often seen in a picture. "Don't you like me, darling?" said Isa, offering her a handful of peppermints. "O, yes, I like you," said the child, accepting the sugar-plums, "but I don't like the _spirit_ of you." "What does that mean, you funny thing?" "I don't know, but that's the way they talk." Prudy loved Mahla Linck at once. She said she had had just such a lameness her own self, and knew how it felt. "Ah, little dear," said Mahla, laying her wasted cheek close to Prudy's, "but you can walk now without a crutch, and I never can." "O, Mahla, yes, you can _never_; you can when you grow an angel."