manage very well.'
'And put the whole house in a mess, as you did last time; turn everything upside down. I tell you, Beatrice, I can't have it done. I shall want the study to put out the supper in.'
'We can dress in our own rooms, then,' said Beatrice, 'never mind that.'
'Well, then, if you will make merry-andrews of yourselves, and your fathers and mothers like to let you, I can't help it-that's all I have to say,' said Mrs. Langford, walking out of the room; while Fred entered from the other side a moment after. 'Victory, victory, my dear Fred!' cried Beatrice, darting to meet him in an ecstasy. 'I have prevailed: you find me in the hour of victory. The Assassin for ever! announced for Monday night, before a select audience!'
'Well, you are an irresistible Queen Bee,' said Fred; 'why Alex has just been telling me ever so much that his mother told him about grandmamma's dislike to it. I thought the whole concern a gone 'coon, as they say in America.'
'I got grandpapa first,' said Beatrice, 'and then I persuaded her; she told me it would lead to all sorts of mischief, and gave me a long lecture which had nothing to do with it. But I found out at last that the chief points which alarmed her were poor Shakespeare and the confusion in the study; so by giving up those two I gained everything.'
'You don't mean that you gave up bully Bottom?'
'Yes, I do; but you need not resign your asses' ears. You shall wear them in the character of King Midas.'
'I think,' said the ungrateful Fred, 'that you might as well have given it all up together as Bottom.'
'No, no; just think what capabilities there are in Midas. We will decidedly make him King of California, and I'll be the priestess of Apollo; there is an old three-legged epergne-stand that will make a most excellent tripod. And only think of the whispering into the reeds, 'King Midas has the ears of an ass.' I would have made more of a fight for Bottom, if that had not come into my head.'
'But you will have nothing to do.'
'That helped to conciliate. I promised we girls should appear very little, and for the sake of effect, I had rather Henrietta broke on the world in all her beauty at the end. I do look forward to seeing her as Queen Eleanor; she will look so regal.'
Fred smiled, for he delighted in his sister's praises. 'You are a wondrous damsel, busy one,' said he, 'to be content to play second fiddle.'
'Second fiddle! As if I were not the great moving spring! Trust me, you would never write yourself down an ass but for the Queen Bee. How shall we ever get your ears from Allonfield? Saturday night, and only till Monday evening to do everything in!'
'Oh, you will do it,' said Fred. 'I wonder what you and Henrietta cannot do between you! Oh, there is Uncle Geoffrey come in,' he exclaimed, as he heard the front door open.
'And I must go and dress,' said Beatrice, seized with a sudden haste, which did not speak well for the state of her conscience.
Uncle Geoffrey was in the hall, taking off his mud-bespattered gaiters. 'So you are entered with the vermin, Fred,' called he, as the two came out of the drawing-room.
'O how we wished for you, Uncle Geoffrey! but how did you hear it?'
'I met Alex just now. Capital sport you must have had. Are you only just come in?'
'No, we were having a consultation about the charades,' said Fred; 'the higher powers consent to our having them on Monday.'
'Grandmamma approving?' asked Uncle Geoffrey.
'O yes,' said Fred, in all honesty, 'she only objected to our taking a regular scene in a play, and 'coming it as strong' as we did the other night; so it is to be all extemporary, and it will do famously.'
Beatrice, who had been waiting in the dark at the top of the stairs, listening, was infinitely rejoiced that her project had been explained so plausibly, and yet in such perfect good faith, and she flew off to dress in high spirits. Had she mentioned it to her father, he would have doubted, taken it as her scheme, and perhaps put a stop to it: but hearing of it from Frederick, whose pleasures were so often thwarted, was likely to make him far more unwilling to object. For its own sake, she knew he had no objection to the sport; it was only for that of his mother; and since he had heard of her as consenting, all was right. No, could Beatrice actually say so to her own secret soul?
She could not; but she could smother the still small voice that checked her, in a multitude of plans, and projects, and criticisms, and airy castles, and, above all, the pleasure of triumph and dominion, and the resolution not to yield, and the delight of leading.
CHAPTER XII.
'OUR hearts and all our members, being mortified from all worldly and carnal lusts:' so speaks the collect with which we begin the new year-such the prayer to which the lips of the young Langfords said, 'Amen:' but what was its application to them? What did they do with the wicked world in their own guarded homes? There was Uncle Geoffrey, he was in the world. It might be for him to pray for that spirit which enabled him to pass unscathed through the perils of his profession, neither tempted to grasp at the honours nor the wealth which lay in his way, unhardened and unsoured by the contact of the sin and selfishness on every side. This might indeed be the world. There was Jessie Carey, with her love of dress, and admiration, and pleasure; she should surely pray that she might live less to the vanities of the world; there were others, whose worn countenances spoke of hearts devoted to the cares of the world; but to those fair, fresh, happy young things, early taught how to prize vain pomp and glory, their minds as yet free from anxiety, looking from a safe distance on the busy field of trial and temptation; were not they truly kept from that world which they had renounced?
Alas! that they did not lay to heart that the world is everywhere; that if education had placed them above being tempted by the poorer, cheaper, and more ordinary attractions, yet allurements there were for them also. A pleasure pursued with headlong vehemence because it was of their own devising, love of rule, the spirit of rivalry, the want of submission; these were of the world. Other temptations had not yet reached them, but if they gave way to those which assailed them in their early youth, how could they expect to have strength to bear up against the darker and stronger ones which would meet their riper years?
Even before daylight had fully found its way into Knight Sutton Hall, there was many a note of preparation, and none clearer or louder than those of the charade actors. Beatrice was up long before light, in the midst of her preparations, and it was not long after, as, lamp in hand, she whisked through the passages, Frederick's voice was heard demanding whether the Busy Bee had turned into a firefly, and if the paste was made wherewith Midas was to have his crown stuck with gold paper. Zealous indeed were the workers, and heartily did old Judith wish them anywhere else, as she drove them, their lamps, their paste, and newspaper, from one corner of the study to the other, and at last fairly out into the hall, threatening them with what Missus would say to them. At last grandmamma came down with a party of neat little notes in her hand, to be immediately sent off by Martin and the cart to Allonfield, and Martin came to the door leading to the kitchen regions to receive his directions.
'O how lucky!' cried Queen Bee, springing up. 'The cotton velvet for the ears! I'll write a note in a second!' Then she paused. 'But I can't do it without Henrietta, I don't know how much she wants. Half a yard must do, I suppose; but then, how to describe it? Half a yard of donkey-coloured velvet! It will never do; I must see Henrietta first!'
'Have not you heard her bell?' said Fred.
'No, shall I go and knock at the door? She must be up by this time.'
'You had better ask Bennet,' said Fred; 'she sometimes gets up quietly, and dresses herself without Bennet, if mamma is asleep, because it gives her a palpitation to be disturbed in the morning.'
Bennet was shouted for, and proved not to have been into her mistress's room. The charade mania was not strong enough to make them venture upon disturbing Mrs. Frederick Langford, and to their great vexation, Martin departed bearing no commission for the asinine decorations.
About half an hour after, Henrietta made her appearance, as sorry as any one that the opportunity had been
