What possessed Timothy just then?—[Page 199.]
Mrs. Merrill looked at the table-cloth. Then she looked at Dora and looked at the clock. She unbuttoned Dora’s dress.
“Take this into the shed, Lucy,” she said, “and put it in one of the tubs. Go and put on your blue gingham, Dora. Hurry, both of you, for we must take off the dishes and put on another cloth.”
Trying not to cry, Dora went up-stairs.
“Dora was very careless, wasn’t she?” asked Lucy, coming back from the shed and helping gather up the plates and silver.
“It was an accident,” said Mother with a sigh. “It might have happened to you.”
All the same, Lucy had not spilled the apple-sauce, and she felt virtuous.
“Put that cat out,” said Mrs. Merrill. “I can’t have him under foot a minute longer.”