"Nellie! and Carrie! and Cafarine! all of yous! what do you fink?" she cried. "Oh! such a fing!"
"What is the matter?" said all three at once.
"A mouse! a weally mouse in the dinin'-room. Not a white mouse, but a nigger mouse,—oh! I forgot again,—I mean a colored person mouse, right in the dinin'-room! What will mamma say?"
"Oh! you must be mistaken, Daisy," said Nellie, while Carrie heard the words of her youngest sister with a sinking heart.
"No, I'm not, I'm not," persisted Daisy. "It was just as weally a mouse as it could be. He was under the sideboard, and he ran out and under the sofa."
"Oh dear!" said Nellie, in dismay at the news. "Catherine, there must be mice in this house. A good many too."
"Well, no, miss, I think not," said the cook. "This is the first one"—
Down went the bowl into which Carrie was sifting her sugar, not purposely, though she was only too thankful for the diversion it afforded, but because she had given a violent start and knocked the bowl with her elbow in her alarm at Catherine's words. How nearly her secret had been discovered! But now it was safe at least for the time, for the bowl was broken, the sugar scattered over the floor, and it was some moments before order was restored; by which time Nellie was intent upon cutting out her cakes, marking them with the "jigging iron," and laying them in the bake-pans, so that she had no thought for mice, white or gray.
Declaring herself "tired of helping," and feeling that her labors had brought no very satisfactory result to herself or others, Carrie left the kitchen and wandered into the dining-room, possibly to see if she could spy the mouse Daisy had discovered. But no, there was no mouse there, at least she could find none; and she began to hope that, after all, the little one had been mistaken.
Oh dear! how wretched and unhappy she felt! She began to think she would feel better if she went and told mamma, making honest confession of what she had done, and begging her forgiveness.