"I like bottles," she added. "They almost always have things in them that smell good," and she reached up on tiptoe toward the shelf. The first bottle that she reached just came within her grasp, and she pulled it toward her. When she pulled the stopper, it proved to be a fragrant toilet water, and even Maggie, admitting that it was delightful, yielded to the pleasure of inhaling it directly from the bottle. Emboldened by her success, Haleema drew another bottle down toward her and made a feint of drinking from it. "Oh, don't!" cried Maggie, in genuine alarm, "it may be poison." "Oh, they wouldn't leave poisons around like this. I'd just as lief as not taste anything here. I ain't afraid." But although she spoke thus bravely, Haleema really did not venture to put the liquid to her mouth. Then she touched a third bottle, filled with a colorless liquid. She tried to pull out the rubber stopper, but it would not stir. Holding the bottle under one arm, she gave a second, more vigorous pull, when the stopper not only came out, but in some way the liquid flew out, and then--a loud scream from Maggie, who was wiping the edge of the bathtub. Haleema herself, half suffocated by the fumes of the ammonia from the harmless-looking bottle, had enough presence of mind to set it up on the marble washstand. But, alas! she set it down so hard that the glass broke and the ammonia trickled down, destroying the glossy surface of the hardwood floor. All these things, of course, had happened in a very short time; not a minute, indeed, had passed after Maggie's first shriek before Julia and Miss South and two or three girls had rushed to the room. The ammonia fumes at once told the story to Miss South, and without waiting for an explanation she had raised Maggie from the floor. "Oh, dear, my eyes!" sobbed Maggie, and for a moment Miss South was frightened. Ammonia can work great havoc when it touches the eyes. Fortunately, however, as it happened it was not Maggie's eyes but her face that the ammonia had really hurt. Her eyes were inflamed, and she had to be kept in a dark room for a day or two, and her face had to be salved and swathed in cloths. But in the end no great injury had been done, and she won Haleema's everlasting gratitude by resisting the temptation to tell enquirers that Haleema's carelessness had caused the disaster; for great injury had been done the polished floor, and Haleema knew that she deserved reproof and punishment. Yet such was Maggie's reputation for destructiveness that she was supposed to have broken the bottle, and in the injury to her face she was thought to have paid a sufficient penalty. When Concetta returned to the house an hour later, great was her surprise to find that her lamps had been cleaned, and when Haleema told her of Maggie's kindness she could not understand it. "Perhaps she's trying for a prize." "What prize?"