hing you'd like to do?'

And he said, 'No, thank you.'

Then neither of us said anything for a bit--and I could hear the others
shrieking with laughter in the hall.

I said, 'I wonder what the surprise will be like.'

He said, 'Yes, I wonder'; but I could tell from his tone that he did not
wonder a bit.

The others were yelling with laughter. Have you ever noticed how very
amused people always are when you're not there? If you're in bed--ill,
or in disgrace, or anything--it always sounds like far finer jokes than
ever occur when you are not out of things.

'Do you like reading?' said I--who am Rupert--in the tones of despair.

'Yes,' said the cousin.

'Then take a book,' I said hastily, for I really could not stand it
another second, 'and you just read till the surprise is ready. I think I
ought to go and help the others. I'm the eldest, you know.'

I did not wait--I suppose if you're ten you can choose a book for
yourself--and I went.

Hilda's idea was just Indians, but I thought a wigwam would be nice. So
we made one with the hall table and the fur rugs off the floor. If
everything had been different, and Aunt Ellie hadn't been ill, we were
to have had turkey for dinner. The turkey's feathers were splendid for
Indians, and the striped blankets off Hugh's and my beds, and all
mother's beads. The hall is big like a room, and there was a fire. The
afternoon passed like a beautiful dream. When Rupert had done his own
feathering and blanketing, as well as brown paper moccasins, he helped
the others. The tea-bell rang before we were quite dressed. We got
Louisa to go up and tell our cousin that the surprise was ready, and we
all got inside the wigwam. It was a very tight fit, with the feathers
and the blankets.

He came down the stairs very slowly, reading all the time, and when he
got to the mat at the bottom of the stairs we burst forth in all our
war-paint from the wigwam. It upset, because Hugh and Hilda stuck
between the table's legs, and it fell on the stone floor with quite a
loud noise. The wild Indians picked themselves up out of the ruins and
did the finest war-dance I've ever seen in front of my cousin Sidney.

He gave one little scream, and then sat down suddenly on the bottom
steps. He leaned his head against the banisters and we thought he was
admiring the war-dance, till Eliza, who had been laughing and making as
much noise as any one, suddenly went up to him and shook him.

'Stop that noise,'