"Oh! they're in the nursery now, Mrs. Bell, but there isn't a place in the house where they haven't been, even into our bonnet boxes, May's and mine, mum."
Morris's mamma gave a troubled little sigh as she patiently followed Bridget from room to room. Oh! Such mischievous work as met her on every side. Pincushions ripped open; bottles emptied, and bottles with their corks pulled out; burnt matches strewed about the floors; the broken banjo string, and in the servants' room, whisps of straw, and draggled bits of flowers and feathers, and ribbons—all that was left of the poor girls' bonnets.
The boys were in the midst of one of their grand shakings of the pillows when Mrs. Bell came into the room. "Why, Morris! Why, Jack!" she said very gravely.
Morris hung his head very low.
"I must go home now," said Jack.
"Indeed you must not do anything of the kind," said Mrs. Bell, and she made the boys sit down, one on either side of her, on the sofa.
"I did not mean to do it," said Morris.
"And I did not touch it at all," added Jack.
"Did not mean to do it, Morris! Did not mean to do all that! And what is it, Jack, which you say you did not touch?"
"Why, the banjo!" answered Jack.