er lowered it. Alfy caught it with one hand and held it
inside the room. "Oh! what a mess," he exclaimed, as he saw the water
all over the apartment, with teapot cosy, music, papers, wool-mats, and
all kinds of well-known pleasant household things floating despondingly
on its muddy surface.

"What shall we do?" cried Mansy from the outside. "Oh! help me to get
indoors, so that I can clear up a bit!"

"I don't see yet how I am to get down, Mansy. The table is too far off
for me to jump to it, and the water seems high!"

"Oh! you mustn't get in the water, Master Alfy!" shrieked poor Mansy,
"Oh, I am so tired of this rockety old washin' tub! Can't you get me
out, Alfy dear?"

"I'll get you out, Mansy, somehow, never fear," assented Alfy cheerily.
"Now, Edie dear, can you let down a chair and some hassocks for me to
stand on?"

And the busy girls above tied string to the back of a chair and
carefully lowered it, and some hassocks followed.

Alfy soon placed the chair in the room and piled the hassocks on it.
Then lightly stepping on to them, he was able to make his way to the
table, and also to the sideboard. Next, by means of chairs and
hassocks he made his way to the staircase, and, having hastily mounted
it, put his head out of the nearest upstairs window and shouted,
"Hullo, Mansy!"

"Oh! bless the boy!" exclaimed Mansy with a start. "You have got up
there, have you? I do wish I was safe up there, too, Alfy!"

"You soon will be, Mansy," he replied cheerily.

"Oh! we are glad you've come," cried his sisters, as he met them and
kissed them. "But how are we to get Mansy up? She can never climb in
through the window!"

"She'd fall in the water," remarked Jane, "and there would be a pretty
to-do!"

"Do you think we could pull the tub up with Mansy in it to the window?"
asked Alfy.

"It would be very heavy," suggested Jane.

"And Mansy might fall out," exclaimed the younger sister, with eager
face and wide-open eyes.

"The distance is not very great," remarked Alfy, as he leaned out of
the window and looked down. "And it is less still, of course, up to
the top sash of the window, where I got in. Oh! I know," he added
joyfully; "we will push the table in the downstairs room close to the
window and put a chair on it, and then, if we can pull Mansy up to the
same level, she can creep in over the sashes of the window, on to the
chair."

"Oh! that will be delightful," said the girls. But, at firs