"Mr. Submission, how meek we are, all of a sudden. Well, while the fit lasts, you go to the spring and get me some water to fill this tea-kettle. Off with you now, this minute! Mind you don't stop to play by the way!"

And, while Harry is gone to the spring, we will follow the wife into the forbidden room. Very cool and pleasant it is, with its white window-curtains, its matted floor, and displaying in the corner that draped feather-bed, with its ruffled pillows and fringed curtains, which it is the great ambition of the southern cabin to attain and maintain.

The door, which opened on to a show of most brilliant flowers, was overlaid completely by the lamarque rose we have before referred to; and large clusters of its creamy blossoms, and wreaths of its dark-green leaves, had been enticed in and tied to sundry nails and pegs by the small hands of the little mistress, to form an arch of flowers and roses. A little table stood in the door, draped with a spotless damasked table-cloth, fine enough for the use of a princess, and only produced by the little mistress on festive occasions. On it were arranged dishes curiously trimmed with moss and vine-leaves, which displayed strawberries and peaches, with a pitcher of cream and one of whey, small dishes of curd, delicate cakes and biscuit, and fresh golden butter.

After patting and arranging the table-cloth, Lisette tripped gayly around, and altered here and there the arrangement of a dish, occasionally stepping back, and cocking her little head on one side, much like a bird, singing gayly as she did so; then she would pick a bit of moss from this, and a flower from that, and retreat again, and watch the effect.

"How surprised he will be!" she said to herself. Still humming a tune in a low, gurgling undertone, she danced hither and thither, round the apartment. First she gave the curtains a little shake, and, unlooping one of them, looped it up again, so as to throw the beams of the evening sun on the table.

"There, there, there! how pretty the light falls through those nasturtions! I wonder if the room smells of the mignonette. I gathered it when the dew was on it, and they say that will make it smell all day. Now, here's Harry's book-case. Dear me! these flies! How they do get on to everything! Shoo, shoo! now, now!" and, catching a gay bandana handkerchief from the drawer, she perfectly exhausted herself in flying about the room in pursuit of the buzzing intruders, who soared, and dived, and careered, after the manner of flies in general, seeming determined to go anywhere but out of the door, and finally were seen brushing their wings and licking their feet, with great alertness, on the very topmost height of the sacred bed-curtains; and as just this moment a glimpse was caught of Harry returning from the spring, Lisette was obliged to abandon the chase, and rush into the other room, to prevent a premature development of her little tea-tableau. Then a small, pug-nosed, black tea-kettle came on to the stage of action, from some unknown cupboard; and Harry had to fill it with water, and of course spilt the water on to the ironing-table, which made another little breezy, chattering commotion; and then the flat-irons were cleared away, and the pug-nosed kettle reigned in their stead on the charcoal brazier.