"Nas'y ol' twain!" muttered the infant disgustedly.
IV
Meanwhile Elizabeth in her kitchen was busy unearthing divers culinary crimes in the various cupboards and closets where the stolid Celia displayed a positive ingenuity in concealing the evidences of her misdoings. It was not perhaps to be wondered at that the untutored Norwegian should elect to boil her dish-cloth with the embroidered doilies from the dining-room; or that the soap should be discovered in a state of gelatinous collapse in the bottom of the scrubbing pail and the new cereal cooker burning gaily on the range. But Elizabeth's strained patience finally snapped in twain at sight of a pile of parti-coloured bits of china in the bottom of the coal-hod.
"My best salad bowl!" she exclaimed, stooping to examine the grimy fragments. "When did you break it, Celia?"
The girl was standing at the sink, presenting her broad back like a solidly built wall against the rising tide of her mistress' indignation. Her big blond head sank forward over her dish-pan; a guttural murmur issued from her lips.
"And I have always been so careful of it! It was one of my wedding presents!" continued Elizabeth, in a fine crescendo. "How did you do it?"
The girl had turned on both faucets, and the descending torrent of rushing water drowned the anguished inquiry.
"You know I told you never to touch that bowl. I preferred to wash it myself. You must have taken it out of the dining-room. Why did you do it?"