on himself. The forest
scene would be wanted, and I was to try and get an old cask for a
cave.

I must explain that I was not expected to write a play. We never took
the trouble to "learn parts." We generally took some story which
pleased us out of _Grimm's Fairy Tales_ or the _Arabian Nights_, and
arranged for the various scenes. We each had a copy of the
arrangement, and our proper characters were assigned to us. After this
we did the dialogue as if it had been a charade. We were well
accustomed to act together, and could trust each other and ourselves.
Only Alice's brilliancy ever took us by surprise.

By the time that Philip came home I had got in the rough outline of
the plot. He arrived with a box of properties, the mere size of which
raised a cheer of welcome from the little ones, and red-hot for our
theatricals.

Philip was a little apt to be red-hot over projects, and to cool
before they were accomplished; but on this occasion we had no
forebodings of such evil. Besides, he was to play the dragon! When he
did fairly devote himself to anything, he grudged no trouble and
hesitated at no undertakings. He was so much pleased with my plot and
with the cave, that he announced that he should paint a new forest
scene for the occasion. I tried to dissuade him. There were so many
other things to be done, and the old scene was very good. But he had
learnt several new tricks of the scene-painter's trade, and was bent
upon putting them into practice. So he began his new scene, and I
resolved to work all the harder at the odds and ends of our
preparations. To be driven into a corner and pressed for time always
stimulated instead of confusing me. I think the excitement of it is
pleasant. Alice had the same dogged way of working at a crisis, and we
felt quite confident of being able to finish up "at a push," whatever
Philip might leave undone. The theatricals were to be on Twelfth
Night.

Christmas passed very happily on the whole. I found my temper much
oftener tried since Philip's return, but this was not only because he
was very wilful and very fond of teasing, but because with the younger
ones I was always deferred to.

One morning we were very busy in the nursery, which was our workshop.
Philip's glue-pots and size-pots were steaming, there were coloured
powders on every chair, Alice and I were laying a coat of invisible
green over the cave-cask, and Philip, in radiant good-humour, was
giving distance to his woodl