"Only don't be a month about it; you boys are so slow," added Grace, in a superior tone, that ruffled the gentleman at the ventilator. "We'll do it to-morrow; see if we don't," he cried out, rashly heaping difficulties upon his party. "Then you'd better set about it at once, and leave us in peace," said Nell, tartly. "I shall go, ma'am, when I please, and not one minute sooner"--began Tom, with immense dignity; but he did not keep his word; for the sudden withdrawal of his head, followed by a crash and howls of mingled merriment, wrath, and pain, plainly proved that circumstances over which he had no control hastened his departure. The ladies sat down to their afternoon tea, which was much enlivened by guessing what those "stupid boys" would do. The gentlemen, warned by Tom's downfall, contented themselves with racking their mighty minds to invent some new, striking, and appropriate entertainment which should cover their names with glory and demolish their opponents for ever more. Perhaps it was too soon after dinner; perhaps the brightest wits of the party had been shaken by the fall, or the cold affected the inventive powers; for, rack as they would, those mighty minds refused to work. "You ought to have given us more time; of course we can't get up any thing clever in one day and a half," grumbled Frank, much annoyed because all the rest looked to him and he had not an idea to offer. "I wasn't going to have a parcel of girls crow over me. I'd blow myself up for a show before I'd let them do that," answered Tom, rubbing his bruised elbows with a grim and defiant glance toward the fatal ventilator, for he felt that he had got not only himself but his mates into a scrape. "Don't worry, old fellows; time enough; sleep on it, and something capital will pop into somebody's noddle, see if it doesn't," counselled Alf, with a sage nod, as he went to discover who was sobbing in the hall. Little Lotty sat on the fuzzy red mat, with a tortoise-shell kitten in her arms, her white pinafore full of candies, and her chubby face bedewed with tears. "What's the matter, Toddlekins?" asked Alf, in such a sympathetic tone that the afflicted infant poured forth her woes in one breath, with the brown eyes flashing through their tears and a dramatic gesture of the small hands that told the tale better than her broken words. "De naughty, naughty girls turned out my Torty 'cause she hopped on de table and drinked de tea, and I comed too, and we is doing to have a kitmouse tee all ourselfs up in de nursery, so now!" Alf laughed at her indignation, but dried her tears, and sent her away happy with a sprig of hemlock from the decorations of the hall. "Virtue is its own reward" proved true in this case; for as Alf went back to his mates he had an idea--such a superb one that it nearly took his breath away and caused him to break into a wild sort of jig, as he cried aloud--"I've found it, boys; I've found it!"