“Can’t I catch you! I’ll bet a dollar I catch you in less than five minutes!”
“Young ladies don’t bet, and Uncle Morris says that boys shouldn’t, because it’s wicked,” said Jessie, while she busied herself tying the handkerchief. When the knot was fast, she said—
“Now let us see how skilful my cousin Charlie can be!”
Up jumped Charlie, spreading out his arms, and darting now this way and then that, as the steps and voices of the girls led him round the room. Merrily rang out the laugh of Jessie, and the ohs and ahs of her cousin, as they bounded past Charlie, ran round him, or darted out of the reach of his nimble fingers. So spry were they, that ten minutes elapsed and the blinded boy had not caught either of them. At last, he followed them close to one end of the parlor until he found himself clasping the large mirror which reached almost to the floor. Stepping back he tripped over a low ottoman, fell backwards, and bumped his head. Half in vexation, and half in sport he threw up his heels, and just as Jessie cried, “Mind the glass, Charlie!” brought down his legs with a crash on the surface of the mirror.
“Oh dear! He has broken the big mirror!” cried Jessie, in great distress. “What will my father say!”
“Keep still, you stupid, mischievous boy!” said Emily as she tried to pull the bandage from Charlie’s eyes.
“I couldn’t help it!” said he, as rising to his feet, and rubbing his eyes, he stood staring on the ruin his feet had wrought on the lower half of the mirror.
“My pa paid a good deal of money for that mirror,” said Jessie, “and he will be very angry with us, when he comes home to-night. I’m so sorry.”
“That’s just like you, you stupid little monkey,” said Emily, shaking Charlie somewhat rudely by the shoulder. “You are always doing some outrageous thing or another!”
“I couldn’t help it! Let me alone!” muttered Charlie, shaking his sister’s hand from his shoulder.