Sometime after this, Aunt Jane Abbott, who was sick with neuralgia, went to New Jersey¹ for her health. She took Bert and Lucy with her; but little Rose came to stay with Flaxie Frizzle. Rose was her real name, but sometimes they called her Midge, she was so small.  
She was a sweet child; and, the first day she came, Miss Frizzle was so glad to see her that she called for her new tea-set, which stood on the high shelf in the closet, took her best wax doll out of its paper wraps, and held a real jubilee² in the nursery.
 
"O, Rosie," said she, dancing around her, "I wish you'd never, never go home again, only just long enough to see your mother, and come right back again to live in this house. 'Cause I haven't any little sister, you know, 'cept Ninny, and she's big,—'most twelve years old."
 
"Well, my mamma's got the algebra³; and I've come to stay a great, long while," said Rosa, seating herself at the doll's table,—"all the time mamma and Lucy are gone."
 
"What do you say your mamma's got?"
 
"Algebra."
 
"You mean new-algery," said Flaxie, smiling.
 
"Well, I guess it is," returned meek⁴ little Rose, passing a wee plate to her cousin. "And now you say to me, 'Won't you have some tea, lady?'"
 
The dolls sat in their chairs and looked on, while the young hostess turned the tea into the cups very gracefully⁵. "Ahem," said she, trying to look very grown-up, "does tea 'fect your nerves, Mrs. Rose?"
 
"Yes'm,—I don' know," replied Mrs. Rose, puckering⁶ her lips to fit the tiny spoon.
 
"You goin' to piece the meat, and give all as much as each?"
 
"No, Mrs. Rose: you may take your fork and put one slice of meat on each doll's plate."
 
Rose obeyed; and then, as nothing else was said, she asked,—
 
"How is your chillens, Mrs. Frizzle?"
 
"All are well that you see here at the table, ma'am; but the rest are down with measles," returned the little lady of the teapot. "Will you have some of the fruit, Mrs. Rose?"
 
"O, that isn't fyuit," said the small guest; "that's blackb'ry perserves; but we'll make b'lieve it's fyuit. Yes'm: thank you, if you please."
 
"Brackberries are fruits," said the correct Mrs. Frizzle; "and currants are fruits. You can tell 'em just as easy. When anything has seeds to it, then it's a fruit; and, when it hasn't seeds, it's a vegetable."
 
"O, I thought peaches was fyuits; and peaches hasn't any seeds," said Rose, faintly.
 
"Why, you little ignoramus! Of course peaches have stones! Who ever said they had seeds!"
 
"I don't like to have you call me niggeramus," said Rose, with a quivering lip. "My mamma never said so."
 
"Well, my sister Ninny says so; and she studies hist'ry. You don't know what words mean, Rosie; you don't go to school!"
 
"No," said Rose, hanging her head, "I haven't never been to school, 'cause mamma says I'm not velly well."
 
"'Fore⁷ I'd be a cry-baby, Mrs. Midge," returned Flaxie, enjoying the very humble⁸ look on her cousin's face. "You wouldn't dare go to school, 'cause there are cows in the road."
 
"I'm 'fraid of cows when they have their hooks on," said Rosie, still hanging her head.
 
"I guess everybody knows that. Will you please pass the cream-pitcher?"
 
"It's velly funny queam" said dear little Rose, winking⁹ away her tears.
 
"This isn't cream, ma'am; it's condensed milk."
 
"Condemned¹⁰ milk?"
 
"No: I said condensed, not condemned. You look as if you never saw any before."
 
"My papa hasn't got a condensed cow," said Rose, humbly¹¹.
 
"You goosie, goosie," laughed Flaxie. "My papa hasn't got a condensed cow, either; nobody has. You buy this kind of milk at the store. I'm going right into the parlor¹² to tell my mother what you said."
 
"Don't, O, don't," implored¹³ little Rose.
 
Flaxie knew her young cousin dreaded¹⁴ to be laughed at;—all children dread¹⁵ it;—but, forgetting her manners, and the Golden Rule, too, she sprang up from the table and ran to the door, little Rose creeping after her, all the happiness gone out of her face.
 
Mrs. Prim¹⁶ was in the parlor, and it did seem as if she would never be done laughing about that "condensed cow;" but Mrs. Gray only said,—
 
 
"Well, well; no wonder the darling didn't know."
 
Sweet, sensitive Rose stood in the doorway¹⁷, looking down at her boots and thinking how silly Mrs. Prim was, and how unkind her dear cousin Flaxie.
 
"I used to love Flaxie," thought she, squeezing back a tear; "but now I wish I could go wight home and stay there. Plaguing little............