So they picked up chairs and made a path, and ran from across the broad kitchen into the parlor doorway, quite on to the middle round of the carpet, and then with great leaps came down bodily upon the floor close in front of the large glass that, leaned over them, with two little fallen figures in it, rolling aside quickly also, over the slanting red carpet.

But, O dear what did it?

Had the time come, anyhow, for the old string to part its last fibre, that held the mirror tilting from the wall,—­or was it the crash of a completed spell?

There came a snap,—­a strain,—­as some nails or screws that held it otherwise gave way before the forward pressing weight, and down, flat-face upon the floor, between the children, covering them with fragments of splintered glass and gilded wood,—­eagle, ball-chains, and all,—­that whole magnificence and mystery lay prostrate.

Behind, where it had been, was a blank, brown-stained cobwebbed wall, thrown up harsh and sudden against them, making the room small, and all the enchanted chamber, with its red slanting carpet, and its far reflected corners, gone.

The house hushed up again after that terrible noise, and stood just the same as ever.  When a thing like that happens, it tells its own story, just once, and then it is over. People are different.  They keep talking.

There was Grashy to come home.  She had not got there in time to hear the house tell it.  She must learn it from the children.  Why?

“Because they knew,” Luclarion said.  “Because, then, they could not wait and let it be found out.”

“We never touched it,” said Mark.

“We jumped,” said Luke.

“We couldn’t help it, if that did it.  S’posin’ we’d jumped in the kitchen, or—­the—­flat-irons had tumbled down,—­or anything?  That old string was all wore out.”

“Well, we was here, and we jumped; and we know.”

“We was here, of course; and of course we couldn’t help knowing, with all that slam-bang.  Why, it almost upset Lake Ontario!  We can tell how it slammed, and how we thought the house was coming down.  I did.”

“And how we were in the best parlor, and how we jumped,” reiterated Luclarion, slowly.  “Marcus, it’s a stump!”

They were out in the middle of Lake Ontario now, sitting right down underneath the wrecks, upon the floor; that is, under water, without ever thinking of it.  The parlor door was shut, with all that disaster and dismay behind it.

“Go ahead, then!” said Marcus, and he laid himself back desperately on the floor.  “There’s Grashy!”

“Sakes and patience!” ejaculated Grashy, merrily, coming in.  “They’re drownded,—­dead, both of ’em; down to the bottom of Lake Ontariah!”

“No we ain’t,” said Luclarion, quietly.  “It isn’t Lake Ontario now.  It’s nothing but a clutter.  But there’s an awful thing in the best parlor, and we don’t know whether we did it or not.  We were in there, and we jumped.”