'No harm _to-day_, at least,' thought I.

But he was of a different opinion.

Advancing to the window, and seeing the children's occupations, he testily exclaimed--'What in the world are you about ?' 'We're grinding egg-shells, papa!' cried Tom.
'How _dare_ you make such a mess, you little devils?
Don't you see what confounded work you're making of the carpet ?' (the carpet was a plain brown drugget).

'Miss Grey, did you know what they were doing ?' 'Yes, sir.' 'You knew it ?' 'Yes.' 'You knew it! and you actually sat there and permitted them to go on without a word of reproof!' 'I didn't think they were doing any harm.' 'Any harm! Why, look there! Just look at that carpet, and see--was there ever anything like it in a Christian house before?
No wonder your room is not fit for a pigsty--no wonder your pupils are worse than a litter of pigs!--no wonder--oh! I declare, it puts me quite past my patience' and he departed, shutting the door after him with a bang that made the children laugh.
'It puts me quite past my patience too!' muttered I, getting up; and, seizing the poker, I dashed it repeatedly into the cinders, and stirred them up with unwonted energy; thus easing my irritation under pretence of mending the fire.
After this, Mr.Bloomfield was continually looking in to see if the schoolroom was in order; and, as the children were continually littering the floor with fragments of toys, sticks, stones, stubble, leaves, and other rubbish, which I could not prevent their bringing, or oblige them to gather up, and which the servants refused to 'clean after them,' I had to spend a considerable portion of my valuable leisure moments on my knees upon the floor, in painsfully reducing things to order.

Once I told them that they should not taste their supper till they had picked up everything from the carpet; Fanny might have hers when she had taken up a certain quantity, Mary Ann when she had gathered twice as many, and Tom was to clear away the rest.