I wonder what they were dreaming of as they slept; I believe they must have been pleasant dreams, unless they were dreaming about the broken brush—they were such comfortable-looking little faces, and they had such comfortable hearts, because they were good, and comfortable hearts help bring bright dreams.
When the mother came home I think she must have smiled to see them heaped in the corner fast asleep, but I suppose she had found them heaped in a corner asleep many a time. I hope she did not scold very hard about the broken brush, and I am almost sure she did not.
'Lisbeth, as I said before, felt very much discouraged that evening. She even felt dull the next morning, and the next afternoon. The mother had gone out that afternoon to take home some sewing; the boys were playing outside. 'Lisbeth had nobody to talk to. She concluded to talk to herself.
She got up on a high three-legged stool in the corner, and sat with her face to the wall; she wanted to think. She could not think if she was looking out of the window, or around the room, or if she sat in every-day fashion on a chair or on the floor. She sat in the darkest corner she could find.
"'Lisbeth Lillibun," she said to herself, "you have done nothing for yourself yet by coming to London; you have done nothing for yourself yet;" and it seemed that all the glasses and crockery on the table, and on the shelf, and even the coffee pot turned up on the stove to dry, jingled and rattled and laughed; but, of course, they did not.
"You must be up and a-doing, 'Lisbeth; it is time;" then the tin tea pot, and the coffee pot, and the candlestick turned up on the stove to melt the old candle out, and the spider and the skillet and the dipper seemed, every one of them, to be giggling, and 'Lisbeth looked around at them; but of course it was only a fancy.
"You have been making a goose of yourself, and most of all in sweeping a crossing dry for people to spatter with mud; you should be ashamed of yourself to be such a silly, and sitting where you are instead of being sitting somewhere else," and the tongs did clap together, and the poker did roll over, and the gridiron did give a clink against the wall, but I think the wind must have blown down the chimney.
'Lisbeth was insulted, however; she did not believe in the tins and tongs making fun of her. She got down from the stool, and put her bonnet on, and then changed it for her hat with a ribbon tied around it, and then she went out where there were no tongs to clap at her; but of course it was only a fancy of 'Lisbeth's about the tongs, for how could a tongs clap unless it was clapped? It was wrong for 'Lisbeth to go out; her place was in the house.