e thought of their coming home
just now?' and he was going to lift me down from my nail; but when the
door opened, the housemaid came in alone, and he changed his mind.

'Why, Master Geoffrey,' said she, 'what are you doing here all alone?
Some mischief, I'll be bound.'

'Bow, wow, wow,' answered he, dancing and playing all sorts of antics to
prevent her seeing me.

'Come,' said she, 'those tricks won't go down with me. The more lively
you are, the more I know you've been after something you ought to have
let alone.'

'Hee haw, hee haw,' said Geoffrey, twitching her gown, and braying like
a donkey.

'Well, you're speaking in your own voice at last,' said she, laughing.
'But let go of my gown, if you please; you are big enough to walk by
yourself, and I want to set the room to rights. There's some young
ladies coming to tea with Miss Rose.'

She bustled about, dusting and putting every thing in order, and talking
all the time, partly to Geoffrey and partly to herself, about the blacks
that came in at the windows, and made a place want dusting a dozen times
a day, when her eye fell on my unfortunate figure, which my persecutor
had just set swinging like the pendulum of a clock. I was a deplorable
object. He had forced me into the most awkward attitude he could invent.
My arms were turned round in their sockets, one stretched towards the
ceiling, the other at full length on one side. I was forced to kick one
leg out in front, and the other behind; and my knees were bent up the
wrong way. My wig had fallen off altogether from my head, and was now
perched upon my toe. I was still swinging, when Sarah caught sight of
me. She looked at me for a moment, and then turned round, opening her
eyes at Geoffrey much wider than I had ever done.

'Why, you audacious, aggravating boy!' she exclaimed, making a dash at
him with her duster; but he ran away laughing, and she was obliged to
finish her speech to herself.

'To think of his being so mischievous and ill-natured! What will poor
Miss Rose say! To be sure, there is nothing boys won't do; their equals
for perverseness don't walk the earth. Though I ought not to speak
against them, while there's Master William and Master Edward to
contradict me. They are boys, to be sure; but as for that Geoffrey!' And
here she shook her head in silence, as if Geoffrey's delinquencies were
beyond the power of words to express.

She then released me; and after restoring my limbs to their pro