“I’ll go on my tippy toes,” pleaded Prudy, her mouth half filled with chocolate drops.

So through their mother’s room they stole softly, only throwing over one chair, and hitting Dotty’s crib a little in their haste.  Dotty made a sleepy sound of alarm, and Prudy could not help laughing, but only “in her sleeve,” that is, in her “nightie” sleeve, which she put up to her mouth to smother the noise.

When they had reached the back-stairs Susy whispered, “O, Norah is up and gone down.  I hear her in the kitchen.  ’Sh!  ’Sh!”

Susy thought there was no time to be lost, and she would have rushed down stairs, two steps at a time, but her little sister was exactly in the way.

“Somebody has been and tugged my little chair up here,” said Prudy, “and I must tug it back again.”

So in the dim light the two children groped their way down stairs, Prudy going first with the chair.

“O, what a little snail!  Hurry—­can’t you?” said Susy, impatiently; “Norah’ll be gone!  What’s the use of our waking up in the night if we can’t say Merry Christmas to anybody?”

“Well, ain’t I a-hurryin’ now?” exclaimed Prudy, plunging forward and falling, chair and all, the whole length of the stairs.

All the house was awake now, for Prudy screamed lustily.  Grandma Read called out from the passage-way,—­

“O, little Prudence, has thee broken thy neck?”

Mrs. Parlin rushed out, too frightened to speak, and Mr. Parlin ran down stairs, and took Prudy up in his arms.

“It was—­you—­did it—­Susy Parlin,” sobbed the child.  “I shouldn’t—­have—­fell, if you—­hadn’t—­have—­screamed.”

The poor little girl spoke slowly and with difficulty, as if she dropped a bucket into her full heart, and drew up the words one at a time.

“O, mother, I know it was me,” said Susy meekly; “and I was careless, and it was all in the dark.  I’m sure I hope Prudy’ll forgive me.”

“No, it wasn’t you, neither,” said Prudy, whose good humor was restored the moment Susy had made what she considered due confession.  “You never touched me, Susy!  It was the chair; and I love you just as dearly as ever I did.”

Prudy lay on the sofa for some time, looking quite pale by the gas-light, while her mother rubbed her side, and the rest of the family stood looking at her with anxious faces.

It was quite an important occasion for Prudy, who always liked to be the centre of attraction.

“O, mamma,” said she, closing her eyes languidly, “when the room makes believe whirl round, does it truly whirl round?”

The truth was, she felt faint and dizzy, though only for a short time.

“I wish,” said she, “it had been somebody else that fell down stairs, and not me, for I didn’t go down easy!  The prongs of the chair pushed right into my side.”

But it did not appear that Prudy was much injured, after all.  In a few minutes she was skipping about the room almost as nimbly as ever, only stopping to groan every now and then, when she happened to think of it.