ild, don't come so near my sword-arm; the
needle will go into your eye, and out at the back of your head."

This nonsense made the children giggle.

"The needle will be lost--the child no more--enter undertaker--house
turned topsy-turvy--father shows Woffington to the door--off she
goes with a face as long and dismal as some people's comedies--no
names--crying fine chan-ey oranges."

The children, all but Lucy, screeched with laughter.

Lucy said gravely:

"Mother, the lady is very funny."

"You will be as funny when you are as well paid for it."

This just hit poor Trip's notion of humor, and he began to choke, with
his mouth full of pie.

"James, take care," said Mrs. Triplet, sad and solemn.

James looked up.

"My wife is a good woman, madam," said he; "but deficient in an
important particular."

"Oh, James!"

"Yes, my dear. I regret to say you have no sense of humor; nummore than
a cat, Jane."

"What! because the poor thing can't laugh at your comedy?"

"No, ma'am; but she laughs at nothing."

"Try her with one of your tragedies, my lad."

"I am sure, James," said the poor, good, lackadaisical woman, "if I
don't laugh, it is not for want of the will. I used to be a very hearty
laugher," whined she; "but I haven't laughed this two years."

"Oh, indeed!" said the Woffington. "Then the next two years you shall do
nothing else."

"Ah, madam!" said Triplet. "That passes the art, even of the great
comedian."

"Does it?" said the actress, coolly.

_Lucy._ "She is not a comedy lady. You don't ever cry, pretty lady?"

_Woffington_ (ironically). "Oh, of course not."

_Lucy_ (confidentially). "Comedy is crying. Father cried all the time he
was writing his one."

Triplet turned red as fire.

"Hold your tongue," said he. "I was bursting with merriment. Wife,
our children talk too much; they put their noses into everything, and
criticise their own father."

"Unnatural offspring!" laughed the visitor.

"And when they take up a notion, Socrates couldn't convince them to
the contrary. For instance, madam, all this morning they thought fit to
assume that they were starving."

"So we were," said Lysimachus, "until the angel came; and the devil went
for the pie."

"There--there--there! Now, you mark my words; we shall never get that
idea out of their heads--"

"Until," said Mrs. Woffington, lumping a huge cut of pie into Roxalana's
plate, "we put a very different idea into their stomachs." This a