and boxed his ears
for his rudeness.

"Oh, Aunt May! do tell us a story," clamoured the younger children,
and dragging her into a corner she was soon deep in such a moving tale
that they were all melted to tears, especially the little Aprils, who
cry very easily.

Meanwhile, Mrs. June, assisted by her youngest daughter, a "sweet girl
graduate," just from school, was engaged in decking the apartment with
roses and lilies and other fragrant flowers that she had brought from
her extensive gardens and conservatories, until the room was a
perfect bower of sweetness and beauty; while Mr. July draped the walls
with flags and banners, lighted the candles, and showed off the tricks
of his pet eagle, Yankee Doodle, to the great delight of the little
ones.

Madam August, who suffers a great deal with the heat, found a seat on
a comfortable sofa, as far from the fire as possible, and waved a huge
feather fan back and forth, while her thirty-one boys and girls, led
by the two oldest, Holiday and Vacation, ran riot through the long
rooms, picking at their Aunt June's flowers, and playing all sorts of
pranks, regardless of tumbled hair and torn clothes, while they
shouted, "Hurrah for fun!" and behaved like a pack of wild colts let
loose in a green pasture, until their Uncle September called them,
together with his own children, into the library, and persuaded them
to read some of the books with which the shelves were filled, or play
quietly with the game of Authors and the Dissected Maps.

"For," said Mr. September to Mrs. October, "I think Sister August lets
her children romp too much. I always like improving games for mine,
although I have great trouble to make Equinox toe the line as he
should."

"That is because you are a schoolmaster," laughed Mrs. October,
shaking her head, adorned with a wreath of gayly tinted leaves; "but
where is my baby?"

At that moment a cry was heard without, and Indian Summer came running
in to say that little All Hallows had fallen into a tub of water while
trying to catch an apple that was floating on top, and Mrs. October,
rushing off to the kitchen, returned with her youngest in a very wet
and dripping condition, and screaming at the top of his lusty little
lungs, and could only be consoled by a handful of chestnuts, which his
nurse, Miss Frost, cracked open for him.

The little Novembers, meanwhile, were having a charming time with
their favourite cousins, the Decembers, who were always s