"You knew it by-fore!"

"One, two, three; I thought the doctor gave you five. Where are they
gone?"

"Well, there hasn't but two died; the rest'll live," said Fly, swinging
one of them around by its tail, as if it had been a tame cherry.

Just then Grace came and stood in the parlor doorway.

"O, fie!" said she; "what work! Ma doesn't allow that cage in the
parlor. You just carry it out, Fly Clifford."

Miss Thistledown Flyaway looked up at her sister shyly, out of the
corners of her eyes. Grace was now a beautiful young lady of sixteen,
and almost as tall as her mother. Flyaway adored her, but there was a
growing doubt in her mind whether sister Grace had a right to use the
tone of command.

"'Cause I spect she isn't my mamma."

"Why, Fly, you haven't started yet!"

"I didn't think 'twas best," responded the child, sulkily, fixing her
eyes on the mice, who were dancing whirligigs round the wheel.

"Come here to your best friend, little Topknot," said Horace. "Let's
take that cage into the green-house, and ask papa to keep it there,
because the mice look like water-lilies on long stems."