ays say you won't live long, we don't mind, only Mrs.
Jane Watson is picking it up now from you. We don't like it,
it ain't cheerful.
8. Don't interfere about bedtime. We don't with you.
9. Don't tell about children raised in idleness that turned out
bad. It ain't cheerful, and besides we're not.

Just then the cry was raised that she was coming, and the Magna
Charta was hastily folded up, without receiving the signatures.

Aunt Kate, who was very observant, suspected at once that the
children had been "up to something."

"What have you youngsters been up to now, while we were away?" she
demanded.

There was a thick silence. Mrs. Watson asked the children to answer
their Auntie.

Mary it was who braved the storm. "We've been drawing up a list of
things for you," she said steadily.

Aunt Kate had seen signs of rebellion, and had got to the place where
she was not surprised at anything they did.

"Give it here," she said.

"Wait till it's signed," Pearl said. "It's Charta, Aunt Kate," she
went on, "like 'King John to sign."

"I didn't hear about it. Pearl explained.

"Let me see it, anyway."
Pearl gave her the document, and she retired to her room with it to
look it over.

"Say, Pearl," said Jimmy, "go in there and get out my catapult, will
you? She may sign it and then cutup rough."

There was no more said about it for several days, but Aunt Kate was
decidedly better, though she still declared she did not sleep at
night, and Pearl was determined to convince her that she did. Aunt
Kate was a profound snorer. Pearl, who was the only one who had ever
heard her, in trying to explain it to the other children, said that
it was just like some one pulling a trunk across the room on a bare
floor to see how they would like it in this corner, and then, when
they get it over here, they don't like it a bit, so they pull it back
again; "and besides that," Pearl said, "she whistles comin' back and
grinds her teeth, and after all that she gets up in the mornin' and
tells Ma she heard every hour strike. She couldn't hear the clock
strike anyway, and her kickin' up such a fuss as she is, but I'm
going to stop her if I can; she's our aunt, and we've got to do our
best for her, and, besides, there's lots of nice things about her."

The next morning Pearl was very solicitous about how her aunt had
slept.

"Not a bit better," Aunt Kate said. "I heard every hour but six. I
always drop off about six."

"Did you