ohnnie felt as if she had taken a dose of laughing-gas, at the sight of
twenty boys and girls all at once, real boys, real girls! How long it
was since she had seen any! She capered and jumped in a way which
astonished Miss Inches, and her high spirits so infected the rest that a
general romp set in, and the party grew noisy to an appalling degree.

"Oh, Johnnie dear, no more 'Tag,'" cried poor Mamma Marion, catching
her adopted child and wiping her hot face with a handkerchief. "It is
really too rude, such a game as that. It is only fit for boys."

"Oh, please!--please!--_please_!" entreated Johnnie. "It is splendid.
Papa always let us; he did indeed, he always did."

"I thought you were my child now, and anxious for better things than
tag," said Miss Inches gravely. Johnnie had to submit, but she pouted,
shrugged her shoulders, and looked crossly about her, in a way which
Mamma Marion had never seen before, and which annoyed her very much.

"Now it is time to go to supper," she announced. "Form yourselves into a
procession, children. Johnnie shall take this tambourine and Willy
Parker these castanets, and we will march in to the sound of music."

Johnnie liked to beat the tambourine very much, so her sulks gave place
at once to smiles. The boys and girls sorted themselves into couples,
Miss Inches took the head of the procession with an accordion, Willy
Parker clashed the castanets as well as he could, and they all marched
into the house. The table was beautifully spread with flowers and grapes
and pretty china. Johnnie took the head, Willy the foot, and Dinah the
housemaid helped them all round to sliced peaches and cream.

Miss Inches meanwhile sat down in the corner of the room and drew a
little table full of books near her. As soon as they were all served,
she began,--

"Now, dear children, while you eat, I will read aloud a little. I should
like to think that each one of you carried away one thought at least
from this entertainment,--a thought which would stay by you, and be, as
it were, seed-grain for other thoughts in years to come. First, I will
read 'Abou Ben Adhem,' by Leigh Hunt, an English poet."

The children listened quietly to Abou Ben Adhem, but when Miss Inches
opened another book and began to read sentences from Emerson, a deep
gloom fell upon the party. Willy Parker kicked his neighbor and made a
face. Lucy Hooper and Grace Sherwood whispered behind their napkins, and
got to laughing till the