Now one day, as little Laura, being perhaps four years old, was hanging over the edge of the trough, forgetful of all save the delight of gazing, it chanced that Harry came up behind her; and the spirit of mischief that was always in him triumphed over brotherly affection, and he “Ups with her heels, And smothers her squeals” in the clear, cold water. Laura came up gasping and puffing, her hair streaming all over her round face, her eyes staring with wonder and fright! By the time help arrived, as it fortunately did, in the person of Thomas the gardener, poor Laura was in a deplorable condition, half choked with water, and frightened nearly out of her wits. Thomas carried the dripping child to the house and put her into Mary’s kind arms, and then reported to our mother what Harry had done. We were almost never whipped; but for this misdeed Harry was put to bed at once, and our mother, sitting beside him, gave him what we used to call a “talking to,” which he did not soon forget. Nurse Mary probably thought it would gratify Laura to know that naughty Harry was being punished for his misdoings; but she had mistaken her child. When the mother came back to the nursery from Harry’s room, she found Laura (in dry raiment, but with cheeks still crimson and shining) sitting in the middle of the floor, with clenched fists and flashing eyes, and roaring at the top of her lungs, “I’ll tumble my mudder down wid a ’tick!” CHAPTER III. GREEN PEACE. Not many children can boast of having two homes; some, alas! have hardly one. But we actually had two abiding-places, both of which were so dear to us that we loved them equally. First, there was Green Peace. When our mother first came to the place, and saw the fair garden, and the house with its lawn and its shadowing trees, she gave it this name, half in sport; and the title clung to it always. The house itself was pleasant. The original building, nearly two hundred years old, was low and squat, with low-studded rooms, and great posts in the corners, and small many-paned windows. As I recall it now, it consisted largely of cupboards,--the queerest cupboards that ever were; some square and some three-cornered, and others of no shape [Illustration: MAUD.] at all. They were squeezed into staircase walls, they lurked beside chimneys, they were down near the floor, they were close beneath the ceiling. It was as if a child had built the house for the express purpose of playing hide-and-seek in it. Ah, how we children did play hide-and-seek there! To lie curled up in the darkest corner of the “twisty” cupboard, that went burrowing in under the front stairs,--to lie curled up there, eating an apple, and hear the chase go clattering and thumping by, that was a sensation!