Page:Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Volume 3.djvu/186

 The house had just subsided after the baby's fit, when this arrival set it all in confusion again. Wisp was put into the best bed, where, after a drop of arnica had been applied to his bruises, and a doll's smelling-bottle of hot water to his feet, he groaned himself to sleep.

Leaving his friend Robin to take care of him, Mr. and Mrs. Prance snatched a hasty cup of tea, and hurried to dress for their party.

Mr. Prance, I regret to say, was in a bad humor, for his dinner distressed him, his broken carriages annoyed him, and he didn't feel at all like seeing company. He pulled the bell down ringing for hot water, told the footman he was a "blockhead" because his boots were not blacked to his mind, and asked his wife "why the dickens the buttons were always off his shirts?"

Mrs. Prance was likewise out of sorts, and nothing went well. The new pink lace dress was not becoming. Dimity didn't dress her hair well, and she looked so pale and nervous that she was quite discouraged.

When master and mistress met at last in the lighted drawing-room, two crosser little faces were