"Where the bee sucks, there suck I,"
in a sleepy voice, nodding like an owl.
This was very trying to Mrs. Prance's feelings: she lost her temper, and scolded him as well as she knew how. Marnie was quite frightened to hear the lecture she gave her naughty husband, who sat smiling and blinking till his little coat-tails took fire. The instant a bright blaze shot up behind him as he skipped off the fender, Mrs. Prance stopped scolding, and ran to put the fire out like a devoted little wife. But, oh! sad to tell, her dress caught, and in a minute two blazes flew about the room like a pair of lively Will-o'-the-wisps. Every one screamed and ran, men and maids, Mr. Goodfellow and his patient, the children tumbled out of bed, and came scampering downstairs, and Weewee roared in his cradle as loud as if he tried to call "Fire! Fire!"
Marnie was so frightened at the idea of those cunning, tricksy imps being burnt up, that she screamed also with all her might, and in a minute every sign of the moss people vanished. She rubbed her eyes, but all was quiet,—nothing stirred in fairy-land; the doll's house was topsy-turvy as before, and all she saw were hundreds of motes dancing in the sunshine that now shone brightly on her face. Marnie was so sorry to lose her new playmates, that she would have cried about it if mamma had not waked up just then and asked what was the matter. When Marnie had told her all about it, she laughed at the funny dream, and then looked sober, as she said, with a kiss,—
"If these sly rogues are going to come and imitate us to amuse our little children, we must be careful what we do that we may set them a good example."
"You and papa are not so bad as Mr. and Mrs. Prance, though you do some of the things they did. But the droll little moss boys and girls set me a good example in one way, and I'm going to show them that I don't forget it," said Marnie, beginning to put her playthings in order.
"So am I," added mamma, laughing again as she put away her novel and took up her sewing, thinking to herself that she really would attend more to the comfort of home, and not care so much for fashionable society.
So you see some good was done after all by the merry little phantoms of a dream, for Marnie mamma did not forget the moss people.