I had dozed off, however, and Harold was out and on his feet, poking under the bed for his shoes, when I sat up and grimly regarded him. Just as he said I could come if I liked, Charlotte slipped in, her face rigid and set. And then it was borne in upon me that I was not on in this scene. These youngsters had planned it all out, the piece was their own, and the mounting, and the cast. My sceptre had fallen, my rule had ceased. In this magic hour of the summer night laws went for nothing, codes were cancelled, and those who were most in touch with the moonlight and the warm June spirit and the topsy-turvydom that reigns when the clock strikes ten, were the true lords and lawmakers. Humbly, almost timidly, I followed without a protest in the wake of these two remorseless, purposeful young persons, who were marching straight for the schoolroom. Here in the moonlight the grim big box stood visible--the box in which so large a portion of our past and our personality lay entombed, cold, swathed in paper, awaiting the carrier of the morning who should speed them forth to the strange, cold, distant Children's Hospital, where their little failings would all be misunderstood and no one would make allowances. A dreamy spectator, I stood idly by while Harold propped up the lid and the two plunged in their arms and probed and felt and grappled. “Here's Rosa,” said Harold, suddenly. “I know the feel of her hair. Will you have Rosa out?” “Oh, give me Rosa!” cried Charlotte with a sort of gasp. And when Rosa had been dragged forth, quite unmoved apparently, placid as ever in her moonfaced contemplation of this comedy-world with its ups and downs, Charlotte retired with her to the window-seat, and there in the moonlight the two exchanged their private confidences, leaving Harold to his exploration alone. “Here's something with sharp corners,” said Harold, presently. “Must be Leotard, I think. Better let HIM go.” “Oh, yes, we can't save Leotard,” assented Charlotte, limply. Poor old Leotard! I said nothing, of course; I was not on in this piece. But, surely, had Leotard heard and rightly understood all that was going on above him, he must have sent up one feeble, strangled cry, one faint appeal to be rescued from unfamiliar little Annies and retained for an audience certain to appreciate and never unduly critical. “Now I've got to the Noah's Ark,” panted Harold, still groping blindly. “Try and shove the lid back a bit,” said Charlotte, “and pull out a dove or a zebra or a giraffe if there's one handy.” Harold toiled on with grunts and contortions, and presently produced in triumph a small grey elephant and a large beetle with a red stomach. “They're jammed in too tight,” he complained. “Can't get any more out. But as I came up I'm sure I felt Potiphar!” And down he dived again.