At  last,  one  day,  the  smothered  fire  broke  out.  The  child  had
had  a  half-hoar  af  holiday,  and  had  made  herself  happy  in  it  by
furbishing  up  her  little  bedroom.  She  had  picked  a  peony,  a
yellow  lily,  and  one  or  two  blue  irises,  from  the  spot  of  flowers
in  the  garden,  and  put  them  in  a  tin  dipper  on  the  table  in  her
room,  and  ranged  around  them  her  broken  bits  of  china,  her  red
kenm  and  fragments  of  glass,  in  various  zigzags.    The  spim


THE  CRISIS.  181

of  adornment  thus  roused  within  her,  she  remembered  having
seen  her  brother  make  pretty  garlands  of  oak-leaves ;  and,  run-
ning out  to  an  oak  hard  by,  she  stripped  off  an  apronful  of  the
leaves,  and,  sitting  down  in  the  kifcher  door,  began  her  attempts
to  plait  them  into  garlands.  She  grew  good-natured  and  happy
as  she  wPDught,  and  was  beginning  to  find  herself  in  charity  even
with  Miss  Asphyxia,  when  down  came  that  individual,  bioom  in
hand,  looking  vengeful  as  those  old  Greek  Furies  who  used  to
haunt  houses,  testifying  their  wrath  by  violent  sweeping.
"  What  under  the  canopy  you  up  to  now,  making  such  a  litter
on  my  kitchen  floor  ?  "  she  said.  "  Can't  I  leave  you  a  minute
'thout  your  gettin'  into  some  mischief,  I  want  to  know  ?  Pick
'em  up,  every  leaf  of  'em,  and  carry  'em  and  throw  *em  over  the
fence;  and  don't  you  never  let  me  find  you  bringing  no  such  rub-
bish into  my  kitchen  agin ! "

In  this  unlucky  moment  she  turned,  and,  looking  into  the  little
bedroom,  whose  door  stood  open,  saw  the  arrangements  there.
