y both choked. Johnnie's cross feelings came
back; she felt as if the party was being spoiled, and she wanted to cry.
A low buzz of whispers, broken by titters, went round the table, and
through it all Miss Inches' voice sounded solemn and distinct, as she
slowly read one passage after another, pausing between each to let the
meaning sink properly into the youthful mind.

Altogether the supper was a failure, in spite of peaches and cream and a
delicious cake full of plums and citron. When it was over they went into
the parlor to play. The game of "Twenty Questions" was the first one
chosen. Miss Inches played too. The word she suggested was "iconoclast."

"We don't know what it means," objected the children.

"Oh, don't you, dears? It means a breaker of idols. However, if you are
not familiar with it we will choose something else. How would 'Michael
Angelo' do?"

"But we never heard any thing about him."

Miss Inches was shocked at this, and began a little art-lecture on the
spot, in the midst of which Willy Parker broke in with, "I've thought of
a word,--'hash'?"

"Oh, yes! Capital! Hash is a splendid word!" chorussed the others, and
poor Miss Inches, who had only got as far as Michael Angelo's fourteenth
year, found that no one was listening, and stopped abruptly. Hash seemed
to her a vulgar word for the children to choose, but there was no help
for it, and she resigned herself.

Johnnie thought hash an excellent word. It was so funny when Lucy asked
whether the thing chosen was animal, vegetable, or mineral? and Willy
replied, "All three," for he explained in a whisper, there was always
salt in hash, and salt was a mineral. "Have you all seen it?"
questioned Lucy. "Lots of times," shouted the children, and there was
much laughing. After "Twenty Questions," they played "Sim says
wiggle-waggle," and after that, "Hunt the Slipper." Poor, kind, puzzled
Miss Inches was relieved when they went away, for it seemed to her that
their games were all noisy and a fearful waste of time. She resolved
that she would never give Johnnie any more parties; they upset the child
completely, and demoralized her mind.

Johnnie _was_ upset. After the party she was never so studious or so
docile as she had been before. The little taste of play made her dislike
work, and set her to longing after the home-life where play and work
were mixed with each other as a matter of course. She began to think
that it would be only pleasant to mak