Harry had been told five hundred times, never to touch the candles, and threatened with twenty different punishments, if he ever ventured to do so; but now, he amused himself with trying to snuff one till he snuffed it out. Then he lighted it again, and tried the experiment once more, but again the teazing candle went out, as if on purpose to plague him, so he felt quite provoked. Having lighted it once more, Harry prepared to carry the candlestick with him towards the inner nursery, though afraid to make the smallest noise, in case it might be taken from him. Before he had gone five steps, down dropped the extinguisher, then followed the snuffers with a great crash, but Laura seemed too busy cropping her ringlets, to notice what was going on. All the way along upon the floor, Harry let fall a perfect shower of hot wax, which spotted the nursery carpet from the table where he had found the candle into the next room, where he disappeared, and shut the door, that no one might interfere with what he liked to do.

After he had been absent some time, the door was hastily opened again, and Laura felt surprised to see Harry come back with his face as red as a stick of sealing-wax, and his [37] ]large eyes staring wider than they had ever stared before, with a look of rueful consternation.

“What is the matter!” exclaimed Laura in a terrified voice. “Has anything dreadful happened? Why do you look so frightened and so surprised?”

“Oh dear! oh dear! what shall I do?” cried Harry, who seemed scarcely to know how he spoke, or where he was. “I don’t know what to do, Laura!”

“What can be the matter! do tell me at once, Harry,” said Laura, shaking with apprehension. “Speak as fast as you can!”

“Will you not tell Mrs. Crabtree, nor grandmama, nor anybody else?” cried Harry, bursting into tears. “I am so very, very sorry, and so frightened! Laura! do you know, I took a candle into the next room, merely to play with it.”

“Well! go on, Harry! go on! what did you do with the candle?”

“I only put it on the bed for a single minute, to see how the flame would look there,—well! do you know it blazed away famously, and then all the bed clothes began burning too! Oh! there is such a terrible fire in the next room! you never saw anything like it! what shall we do? If old Andrew were to come up, do you think he could put it out? I have shut the door that Mrs. Crabtree may not see the flames. Be sure, Laura, to tell nobody but Andrew.”

Laura became terrified at the way she saw poor Harry in, but when she opened the door to find out the real state of affairs, oh! what a dreadful sight was there! all the beds were on fire, while bright red flames were blazing up to the roof of the room, with a fierce roaring noise, which it was perfectly frightful to hear. She screamed aloud with terror at this alarming scene, while Harry did all he could to quiet her, and even put his hand over her mouth, that her cries might not be heard. Laura now struggled to get loose, and [38] ]called louder and louder, till at last every maid in the house came racing up stairs, three steps at a time, to know what was the matter. Immediately upon seeing the flames, they all began screaming too, in such a loud discordant way, that it sounded as if a whole flight of crows had come into the passages. Never was there such an uproar heard in the house before, for the walls echoed with a general cry of “Fire! fire! fire!”

Up flew Mrs. Crabtree towards the nursery like a sky-rocket, scolding furiously, talking louder than all the others put together, and asking who had set the house on fire, while Harry and Laura scarcely knew whether to be most frightened for the raging flames, or the raging Mrs. Crabtree; but, in the meantime, they both shrunk into the smallest possible size, and hid themselves behind a door.