(Their mother comes in while they are sitting on the floor eating the sugar plums.)
Mrs. M.—I've come back for my card-case which I have forgotten. Why, what have you been doing? Oh, Harry! Oh, Phœbe! I thought you were going to be so good!
P.—So we were! We were trying to be very, very good.
H.—Awfully good.
Mrs. M.—Good, indeed! I told you not to play with my work-basket, or the books, or the sofa cushions, or that box, and you have disobeyed me in everything! My reels are on the floor, my books on the floor, the sofa cushion on the floor, the box that I particularly asked you not to touch upset and emptied! I must say I think you have been very naughty.
H.—Dear Mammy, I am so sorry! We really didn't mean to play with any of the things. We were going to be like you and Pappy. So I began to read the paper to Phœbe.
P.—While I did your work.
Mrs. M.—(Horrified.) My work!
H.—And, then, because I didn't understand what we were reading about, I got a dictionary to look out the words, and I dropped it, and Phœbe said I was clumsy.
P.—So then he threw a sofa cushion at me.