ked our Aunt Esta to invent a Game for her. The
little girl's name was Posie.

Our Aunt Esta invented a Game. She called it the Game of the
Be-Witchments. It cost two hundred dollars and forty-three cents. The
Rich Man didn't seem to mind the two hundred dollars. But he couldn't
bear the forty-three cents. He'd bear even that, though, he said, if it
would only be sure to work!

"_Work?_" said our Aunt Esta. "Why _of course_ it will work!" So just
the first minute she got it invented she jammed it into her trunk and
dashed up to our house to see if it would!

It worked very well. Our Aunt Esta never wastes any time. Not even
kissing. Either coming or going. We went right up to her room with her.
It was a big trunk. The Expressman swore a little. My Father tore his
trouser-knee. My Mother began right away to re-varnish the scratches on
the bureau.

It took us most all the morning to carry the Game down-stairs. We
carried it to the Dining Room. It covered the table. It covered the
chairs. It strewed the sideboard. It spilled over on the floor. There
was a pair of white muslin angel wings all spangled over with silver and
gold! There was a fairy wand! There was a shining crown! There was a
blue satin clock! There was a yellow plush suit and swishy-tail all
painted sideways in stripes like a tiger! There was a most furious tiger
head with whisk-broom whiskers! There was a green frog's head! And a
green frog's suit! There was a witch's hat and cape! And a hump on the
back! There were bows and arrows! There were boxes and boxes of
milliner's flowers! There were strings of beads! And yards and yards of
dungeon chains made out of silver paper! And a real bugle! And red
Chinese lanterns! And--and everything!

The Rich Man came in a gold-colored car to see it work. When he saw the
Dining Room he sickened. He bit his cigar.

"My daughter Posie is ten years old," he said. "What I ordered for her
was a Game!--not a Trousseau!"

Our Aunt Esta shivered her hands. She shrugged her shoulders.

"You don't understand," she said. "This is no paltry Toy to be exhausted
and sickened of in a single hour! This is a real Game! Eth-ical!
Psycho-psycho--logical! Unendingly diverting! Hour after hour! Day after
day!--Once begun, you understand, it's never over!"

The Rich Man looked at his watch.

"I have to be in Chicago a week from tomorrow!" he said.

Somebody giggled. It couldn't have been Rosalee, of course. Because
Rosalee is se