understand.

You may be sure that I would have starved a week rather than have
climbed on that table, if I had had the slightest foreboding of what
was to follow. But how could I know that Miss Patricia was to choose
that very moment for walking into the dining-room? She had just come
in from the street, for she had on her bonnet, and carried an umbrella
in her hand. Phil and little Elsie followed her.

"Oh, you little torment!" she cried, when she saw me, and, before I
could make up my mind which way to jump, she flew at me with her
umbrella, trying to strike me without breaking any of the dishes. I
dodged this way and that. Seeing no way of escape from the room,
I ran up the curtains, over and under the chairs, around and
around,--anywhere to keep out of her way. She was after me at every
step. When I ran up to the top of the high, carved back of the
old-fashioned sideboard, I found myself out of her reach for one
breathless minute. She was climbing on a chair after me, when the
cook, hearing the unusual sounds, opened the pantry door and looked
in.

[Illustration: "'OH, YOU LITTLE TORMENT!' SHE CRIED."]

It was my only chance of escape, and, regardless of where I might
land, I leaped wildly out. I escaped Miss Patricia's umbrella, it is
true, but, just my luck, I went bump into the cook's face, and then
into the crock of muffin batter which she held in her arms. She
dropped us both with a scream which brought everybody in the house
hurrying to the dining-room, and I scuttled up to the highest shelf of
the pantry, where I crouched trembling, behind some spice-boxes. I was