enny, with an earnest look on Charlie's cunning face.

"Have you never noticed that great tin boiler under her bed?" Jenny burst
into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, which Amy vainly endeavored to
silence, and directly Mary Madeline appeared and said, "Mother would like
to have a little less noise if they could favor her, as she had company
below." Then the three sat down on the floor, and Jenny and Charlie
planned a midnight attack upon the tin boiler. Amy, who was more sedate
and cautious, advised them to desist; but 'twas just the exploit for
Jenny's frolicsome, mischievous temperament. Charlie was to take a
pillow-case, and creep softly under the bed, and fill it from the
supposed contents of the mysterious boiler, while Jenny stood at the
kitchen door to assist him in bearing the precious burden to their room.
How slow the hours passed after the plot was formed ere it could be
carried into execution! Mrs. Salsify in the parlor below kept wishing her
visitors would go, for she had never seen the wicks in the camphene lamps
of so surprising a length. They flooded the whole room with light, and
she recollected Jenny Andrews had asked the privilege of trimming them
after they were last used. She dared not rise and pick them down, for
such narrow-souled persons as she are always fearful that the truth will
be known and their littleness exposed; so she sat in a perfect fever,
watching the fluid getting every moment lower, and scarcely heeding the
remarks of her guests. At length they took their departure, and Mrs.
Salsify rushed in a sort of frenzy to the lamps, and dropped the caps
over the blazing wicks.

"Mary Madeline," said Mr. Mumbles, reprovingly, "don't you know how to
trim a lamp properly? Enough fluid has been wasted to-night by means of
those long wicks to last two evenings with wicks of a proper length."

"'Tis none of Maddie's doings," returned Mrs. S., "she is more prudent
than that. 'Twas that hussy of a Jenny Andrews who trimmed them after
Miss Pinkerton was here the other night."

"Well, the girl ought to pay for the waste she has occasioned," said Mr.
Salsify, gruffly. "Let us retire now; I declare 'tis near eleven
o'clock." The conspirators in the room above heard with eager ears the
departure of the guests, and sat in perfect silence till midnight chimed
from the old clock tower. Then Charlie Seaton, pillow-case in hand, crept
silently down the stairs with Jenny close behind him. Mrs. Mumbles'
b