tupid morning calls, or go out shopping and spend all their money on
silly finery; no--they were full of their play in the house, and didn't
care a doll's shoe-string how hard it rained.

"Oh, dear!" said Lina at last; "seems to me this play is getting very
stupid! I wish we knew something else to play at but everlasting
'house!'"

"I'll tell you what would be great fun!" said little Minnie, looking
wise. "You know, Lina, we spent a week once in the country with 'Alice
Nightcaps;' and her sister, 'Aunt Fanny's' daughter, showed us such a
nice, funny play! Instead of our being mothers, and aunts, and fathers,
and the dolls our children, the dolls were all the people themselves,
and we moved them about and spoke for them."

"Yes, it was such a nice plan!" said Maggie; "you can't think, Lina.
Suppose we divide these dolls into families, and play that Miss Isabella
Belmont Montague was going to be married, and all about it."

"Oh, yes! yes! that will be splendid!" cried Lina. "Whom will you
manage, Maggie?"

"I'd rather have Miss Isabella," said Maggie.

"And I want Mr. Morris," said Minnie. "He shall be the lover."

"Very well, then I'll make the father and mother talk," said Lina,
generously taking the less splendid dolls, without a word of mean
complaint, such as "There, you hateful thing, you always want the best;"
or, "I _do_ wish I could do as I like with _my own_ dolls!" forgetting
that company must be allowed to take the best always. The other dolls
were equally divided between the children, and then Lina exclaimed, with
a delighted little skip in the air, "Now, we are all ready to begin!
Come, girls, what time shall it be?"

"Oh, have them at breakfast!" chimed both the little visitors; and so,
in defiance of the parlor clock, the time of day was supposed to be
eight in the morning. The children, with many little chuckling pauses,
while they considered what to do next, twitched the unlucky table cloth
straight, put the tea-set on the table, and gave the family a wooden
beefsteak for breakfast, and a large plateful of wooden buttered toast,
which came from a box full of such indigestible dainties. Then they
fished Mr. Charles Augustus Montague out of the corner, and set him
upright in a chair at the head of the table, with his newspaper fastened
in his hands, by having a couple of large pins stuck through it and
them. The points of the pins showed on the other side, and looked as if
he had a few extra finge