small boys who were
pulling each other's hair and pummelling each other lustily.

"You naughty boy," she ejaculated with much animation, seizing the
bigger one by the arm and forcing him to face her, "why do you strike
that poor little fellow?"

"He mixes himself up in my affairs," responded the culprit, defiantly;
then discovering a considerable tuft of his antagonist's hair in his
hand, he turned about shame-faced and tried to dispose of it,
unperceived. Miss Jones, however (though she was not without sympathy
for any one whose affairs were becoming mixed), dexterously caught the
descending tuft on the point of her parasol and held it up as proof of
his guilt. "What a dreadful little boy you are," she said,
reprovingly.

"But I will pummel Anton again," retorted the dreadful little boy, "if
he plays 'engaged' with Tilly Heitmann."

"Plays 'engaged!' Ah, then I beg your pardon," said Miss Jones,
airily, with a sly little glance at her companion. "Little boys who
play engaged deserve to be pummelled."

IV.

If Prince Bismarck or his big dog had come to town, there could not
have been more excitement in the Bornholm family. The three young
ladies sat upon a bed, with their hair done up in curl papers, and
looked intense. They had hatched a plot of revenge which was worthy of
three blonde heads done up in curl-paper. It had been ascertained that
Mr. Grover had invited Miss Jones to the artists' carnival, and that
Miss Jones had accepted the invitation. He had, moreover, asked the
Frau Professorin to chaperone Miss Jones for the occasion, and the
Frau Professorin, who was as fond of excitement as a girl, did not
have the strength of mind to show him that she resented the slight he
had put upon her daughters. She tried to make the daughters believe,
of course, that she had; and they would undoubtedly have taken her
word for it, if they hadn't been listening at the key-hole. When taken
to task, the Frau Professorin was in such an indulgent mood that she
would readily have consented to anything; and when Roeschen proposed
that she, too, should go to the masquerade and in exactly the same
costume as Miss Jones, her mother only interposed a vague demurrer
which was easily overridden. The interesting complications which might
arise, if Grover should mistake one Daughter of the Rhine for the
other, stimulated her romantic fancy and made her eager as a girl to
have the plot carried into effect. W