While this was going on, Pug, who had escaped from the nursery, was busy fumbling in his mother's pockets, and soon possessed himself of her purse, the contents of which, with a magnificent air, he went and poured into Margaret's lap. On perceiving this, Laura, with a peal of laughter, caught up the child and kissed him.
"Oh, Laura, how can you encourage Harry's mischief?" cried Mrs. Grey.
"He means no harm," said Laura. "He is a chip of the old block. He does nothing on the sly, but it is his instinct to give. This isn't the first time he has picked my pocket, is it, Pug, you young scamp? Oh, you needn't undertake to give it back," she ran on, as Margaret offered her the money. "I always regard it as providential when Pug robs me and never touches the trash he has given away."
Margaret looked embarrassed. Mrs. Grey shook her head.
"You needn't shake your head, mamma," said Laura. "You let me do this very thing when I was a child, and it did me good. You think my ways with the children all harum-scarum, but they are not. They are founded on philosophical principles. If there is anything I hate it's prig fathers, prig mothers, and prig children."
"I suppose there is no medium," said Mrs. Grey.
"There's no nice one," said Laura. "Well, now, about my book. It fell through—or, rather, it died of scarlet-fever."
"You promised to let me see what you had written," said Margaret.
"I'll read it to you and mamma. You could make nothing out of my scrawls. My idea, if you remember, was to write a receipt-book for young mothers, and you thought it a capital idea, mamma. But such things are easier said than done. I meant to classify everything under different heads, like a medical-book; and then when a mother wanted to know how to act, in an emergency, she could look at the index and find directions instanter. Now listen: