"Or suppose we all take the names of some great personages," added Peter, "I shall be the Duke of Wellington, and Laura, you must be Joseph Hume, and Harry, you are Sir Francis Burdett, that we may seem as different as possible; but here comes the usher of the black rod to disperse us all! Mrs. Crabtree hurrying into the square, her very gown flaming with rage! what can be the matter! she must have smelled the sugar-plums a mile off! one comfort is, if Harry and Laura are taken away, we shall have the fewer people to divide these cakes among, and I could devour every one of them, for my own share." Before Peter finished speaking, Mrs. Crabtree had come close up to the table, and without waiting to utter a word, or even to scold, she twitched up Laura's shawl in her hand, and thus scattered the whole feast in every direction on the ground, after which she trampled the sugar-plums and cakes into the earth, saying, "I knew how it would be, as soon as I saw whose company you were in, Master Harry! Peter Grey is the father of mischief! he ought to be put into the monkey's cage at the GEOlogical gardens! I would not be your maid, Master Grey, for a hundred a-year." "You would need to buy a thrashing machine immediately," said Peter, laughing; "what a fine time I should have of it! you would scarcely allow me, I suppose, to blow my porridge! how long would it take you, Mrs. Crabtree, to make quite a perfectly good boy of me? Perhaps a month, do you think? or to make me as good as Frank, it might possibly require six weeks." "Six weeks!" answered Mrs. Crabtree; "six years, or sixty, would be too short. You are no more like Mr. Frank than a shilling is to a guinea, or a wax light to a dip. If the news were told that you had been a good boy for a single day, the very _statutes_ in the streets would come running along to see the wonder. No! no! I have observed many surprising things in my day, but them great pyramuses in Egypt will turn upside down before you turn like Mr. Frank." Some days after this adventure of Harry and Laura's, there arrived newspapers from London containing accounts of a great battle which had been fought abroad. On that occasion the British troops of course performed prodigies of valour, and completely conquered the enemy, in consequence of which, it was ordered by government, that, in every town, and every village, and every house throughout the whole kingdom, there should be a grand illumination. Neither Harry nor Laura had ever heard of such a thing as an illumination before, and they were full of curiosity to know what it was like; but their very faces became lighted up with joy, when Major Graham described that they would see crowds of candles flaming in every window, tar-barrels blazing on every hill, flambeaux glaring at the doors, and transparencies, fire-works, and coloured lamps shining in all the streets.