THREE BRIGHT GIRLS:
A STORY OF CHANCE AND MISCHANCE.
CHAPTER I.
HOT CHESTNUTS.
Pop!
"There's one!" cries an excited voice.
Pop! bang!
"There's another! look, two! and both on my side," exclaims an equally eager though older voice.
"Here, Doris, you just sheer off to your own side and pick up your own, if you've got the pluck to risk burning those white fingers of yours;" and casting contemptuous glances at the hands in question, the speaker, a bright, handsome boy of about thirteen, dives down upon the rug and commences making sundry ineffectual snatches at several chestnuts which are lying smoking and gleaming amongst the cinders.
"Not so fast, good sir," cries the owner of the white hands, following her brother's example and, despite her seventeen years, prostrating herself beside him. "White or black, I bet you twopence I pick them up quicker than you. Here, Molly, hold the plate. Now, Dick, start fair, you know. Oh! there's another!" And thereupon commences a hot skirmish, in every sense, over the nuts, which by this time are besprinkling the hearth pretty freely: so hot and energetic, in fact, that the other occupants of the room wisely retire from the contest, contenting themselves with looking on, and exploding with laughter now and again at the suppressed exclamations indicative of the warm nature of the undertaking.