'I wonder whether we'd better wish - Hullo! you've done it now, my
boy!' And, in a flash of glass and pink baby-paws, the bowl of
golden carp in the middle of the table rolled on its side, and
poured a flood of mixed water and goldfish into the Baby's lap and
into the laps of the others.

Everyone was almost as much upset as the goldfish: the Lamb only
remaining calm. When the pool on the floor had been mopped up, and
the leaping, gasping goldfish had been collected and put back in
the water, the Baby was taken away to be entirely redressed by
Martha, and most of the others had to change completely. The
pinafores and jackets that had been bathed in goldfish-and-water
were hung out to dry, and then it turned out that Jane must either
mend the dress she had torn the day before or appear all day in her
best petticoat. It was white and soft and frilly, and trimmed with
lace, and very, very pretty, quite as pretty as a frock, if not
more so. Only it was NOT a frock, and Martha's word was law. She
wouldn't let Jane wear her best frock, and she refused to listen
for a moment to Robert's suggestion that Jane should wear her best
petticoat and call it a dress.

'It's not respectable,' she said. And when people say that, it's
no use anyone's saying anything. You will find this out for
yourselves some day.

So there was nothing for it but for Jane to mend her frock. The
hole had been torn the day before when she happened to tumble down
in the High Street of Rochester, just where a water-cart had passed
on its silvery way. She had grazed her knee, and her stocking was
much more than grazed, and her dress was cut by the same stone