"An' whatever have ye been about then, Miss Carrie?" she heard the next instant from Catherine the cook, and the woman stood beside her with uplifted hands, looking from the empty bucket to the full one. "If she ain't been and emptied all the salt-pater into me rock-salt," she cried to one of the other servants who was near.
"Oh my! and saltpetre explodes and goes off sometimes, when it is put with other things," called Nellie, who had heard from the store-room. "Children, come away from it; it might be dangerous."
Away went Carrie, frightened half out of her senses, and, rushing into the room where her mother sat with her aunts, cried in a tone of great distress,—
"Oh! mamma, mamma, I've put all the Peter salt into the other salt, and Nellie thinks we'll blow up."
The smile with which her mother and the other ladies heard this alarming announcement somewhat reassured her, and she soon learned that she had done no such very great harm; but, her brothers Johnny and Bob hearing the story, it was long before she heard the last of the "Peter salt."
With so much else to think about, it is not very surprising that the little girls should forget the white mice; and, even up to the time of their leaving home to go to Mrs. Bradford's house, Nellie did not remember to ask her mother if she would object to them.
Daisy, mindful of the advantage she had gained in the morning, and very much enjoying the position of affairs, was extremely coy and coquettish with Frankie this afternoon; while he, anxious to return to his old standpoint with her, would have given her every thing she fancied, and courted her favor by every means in his power. So you may be sure that he repeated his offer of the white mice, for which he really did not care much, so that it was no great act of generosity to give them up to his young lady-love.
"They're my own, my very own," said the delighted child, showing her prize to Nellie, and the others. "Frankie says so. Just see this one run up my arm, and the ofer one is way down in my pottet. Oh! they're so cunning, and my very own. There comes that one out of my pottet."
Daisy was too much absorbed with her mice to notice the grave, doubtful face with which Nellie heard her, and watched the tame little creatures as they ran over her hands and arms, and up to her shoulder. Nellie could not bear to damp her little sister's pleasure, but she feared that her mother would be nervous and troubled by their presence.