I turned round hastily--how it was I cannot tell, but so it was--the beautiful cup fell from my hands and lay at my feet in, I was going to say, a thousand fragments." "Oh!" exclaimed Sylvia and Molly--"oh, grandmother, what _did_ you do ?" "First of all," grandmother continued, "first of all I stooped down and picked up the pieces.

There were not a thousand of them--not perhaps above a dozen, and after all, grandmother was sleeping quietly, but to all appearance soundly.

The sound that had startled me must have been a fancied one, I said to myself, and oh dear, what a terrible pity I had been startled! "I gathered the bits together in my handkerchief, and stood staring at them in perfect despair.

I dared not let myself burst out crying as I was inclined to do, for grandmother would have heard me and asked what was the matter, and I felt that I should sink into the earth with shame and terror if she saw what I had done, and that I had distinctly disobeyed her.

My only idea was to conceal the mischief.