“Oh, I’m so sorry,” said Merrimeg. “Please excuse me. I really have to go home. And I’m ever so much obliged to you.”
She climbed the ladder to the ceiling and went up through the little door there, and calling down good-by she stepped out onto the roof of the gnomes’ house, and closed down the door after her.
She ran as fast as she could through the woods, until she came to the brook where she had left her basket. There it was, full of water cress, just as she had left it. She snatched it up and ran all the way home.
When she came in at the kitchen door of her house, her mother was rummaging in the cupboard, as if she were looking for something she had lost.
“Well, Merrimeg, you’ve been a precious long time getting a little basketful of water cress. I’ve lost my blue saltcellar with the salt in it. Do you think you can find it?”
Merrimeg suddenly found that the saltcellar was no longer in her pocket. She must have lost it somewhere in the woods.
“No, mother,” said she.