etter.

"Listen, they are guessing," said John Osborne. "'_D-ice-box_.' I don't
wonder they get it wrong."

"But we know it can't be that!" exclaimed Elizabeth Eliza, in agony.
"How can we act the whole if we don't know it ourselves!"

"Oh, I see it!" said Ann Maria, clapping. "Get your whole family in for
the last scene."

Mr. and Mrs. Peterkin were summoned to the stage, and formed the
background, standing on stools; in front were Agamemnon and Solomon
John, leaving room for Elizabeth Eliza between; a little in advance,
and in front of all, half kneeling, were the little boys in their India
rubber boots.

The audience rose to an exclamation of delight, "the Peterkins!"

It was not until this moment that Elizabeth Eliza guessed the whole.

"What a tableau!" exclaimed Mr. Bromwich; "the Peterkin family guessing
their own charade."

A DOUBLE RIDDLE.[A]

BY J.G.H.

There is a word of music's own
That lifts the soul to see and do,--
A happy word, that leaps alone
From lips by pleasure touched anew,

Which, if it join thy parted name,
O Blessed Virgin! bears a curse,
Than which the fatal midnight flame,
Or fateful war, holds nothing worse!

What is this word, with baleful charm,
To change the sweetest name we know
To one surcharged with subtile harm?--
And what the strange, new name of woe?

And if you guess this riddle well,
And speak this word in answer true,
How may it lift--I pray you tell--
The tuneful soul to see and do?

[Footnote A: The answer will be given in "Letter-Box" of January
number.]

UNDER THE LILACS

BY LOUISA M. ALCOTT.

CHAPTER 1

A MYSTERIOUS DOG.

The elm-tree avenue was all overgrown, the great gate was never
unlocked, and the old house had been shut up for several years. Yet
voices were heard about the place, the lilacs nodded over the high wall
as if they said, "We could tell fine secrets if we chose," and the
mullein outside the gate made haste to reach the keyhole that it might
peep in and see what was going on.

If it had suddenly grown up like a magic bean-stalk, and looked in on a
certain June day, it would have seen a droll but pleasant sight, for
somebody evidently was going to have a party.

From the gate to the porch went a wide walk, paved with smooth slabs of
dark stone, and bordered with the tall bushes which met overhead,
making a green roof. All sorts of neglected flowers and wild weed