orrow afternoon, Meg. There is so
much to do about the play for Christmas night," said Jo, marching up
and down, with her hands behind her back, and her nose in the air.

"I don't mean to act any more after this time. I'm getting too old for
such things," observed Meg, who was as much a child as ever about
'dressing-up' frolics.

"You won't stop, I know, as long as you can trail round in a white gown
with your hair down, and wear gold-paper jewelry. You are the best
actress we've got, and there'll be an end of everything if you quit the
boards," said Jo. "We ought to rehearse tonight. Come here, Amy, and
do the fainting scene, for you are as stiff as a poker in that."

"I can't help it. I never saw anyone faint, and I don't choose to make
myself all black and blue, tumbling flat as you do. If I can go down
easily, I'll drop. If I can't, I shall fall into a chair and be
graceful. I don't care if Hugo does come at me with a pistol,"
returned Amy, who was not gifted with dramatic power, but was chosen
because she was small enough to be borne out shrieking by the villain
of the piece.

"Do it this way. Clasp your hands so, and stagger across the room,
crying frantically, 'Roderigo! Save me! Save me!'" and away went Jo,
with a melodramatic scream which was truly thrilling.

Amy followed, but she poked her hands out stiffly before her, and
jerked herself along as if she went by machinery, and her "Ow!" was
more suggestive of pins being run into her than of fear and anguish.
Jo gave a despairing groan, and Meg laughed outright, while Beth let
her bread burn as she watched the fun with interest. "It's no use! Do
the best you can when the time comes, and if the audience laughs, don't
blame me. Come on, Meg."

Then things went smoothly, for Don Pedro defied the world in a speech
of two pages without a single break. Hagar, the witch, chanted an
awful incantation over her kettleful of simmering toads, with weird
effect. Roderigo rent his chains asunder manfully, and Hugo died in
agonies of remorse and arsenic, with a wild, "Ha! Ha!"

"It's the best we've had yet," said Meg, as the dead villain sat up and
rubbed his elbows.

"I don't see how you can write and act such splendid things, Jo.
You're a regular Shakespeare!" exclaimed Beth, who firmly believed that
her sisters were gifted with wonderful genius in all things.

"Not quite," replied Jo modestly. "I do think _The Witches Curse, an
Operatic Tragedy_ is