No dissenting voices being raised, Elsie asked, “What shall we hide?”
“Here’s a mouse made of gray canton flannel,” said Annis, taking it from where it lay at the foot of the tree. “I should think that it would do very well.”
“Yes; and as you have it in your hand, you will hide it first.”
“Yes, if nobody else wants to. Now all cover your eyes, please, and don’t look till I say, ‘Hot—butter—beans! please to come to supper.’”
The game was continued for some time with the understanding that the hiding must be done in that room; then as the good places seemed to have all been used, they took in the next room and the spacious entrance hall beyond.
At length Elsie was the finder, and it became her turn to hide the mouse. With it in her hand she stole softly into the hall and glanced around from floor to ceiling.
It was a very large and handsome apartment, the ceiling lofty, the floor of tessellated marble, the walls frescoed and adorned with two or three fine paintings and several pieces of choice statuary.
Glancing up at one of those last, occupying a niche several feet above the floor, the child thought what a good hiding-place for the mouse might be made of that niche; she could surely slip the little thing in behind the feet of the statue, where it could not be seen, and who would ever think of looking for it there?
She was not tall enough to reach up to the place while standing on the floor, but softly moved a chair near and stepped upon it.
Even then she could not reach easily, not without standing on the edge of the chair, and just as she seemed to have attained her object it slipped from under her; she caught wildly at the statue to save herself from falling, and she and it came down together with a terrible crash, upon the marble floor.