In the evening, it was agreed that there should be no story, but that games and conversation should fill up the time. Mary proposed a new game she had heard of, "_Characters, or Who am I?_" While one left the room, the rest agreed upon some historical personage who was to be represented by the absentee upon his return. When he re-entered, unconscious whether he was a Nero or a Howard, they addressed him in a manner suitable to his rank and character, and he replied in such a way as to elicit further information in regard to the important question, "Who am I?" As he grew more sure of his own identity with the illustrious person whose deeds they alluded to, his answers would become more unequivocal, until at last he could announce that he had solved that difficult problem, "know thyself." An amusing state of puzzle--a dreamy feeling that you might be anybody in the world, was found to pervade the first replies. Cornelia, who led the way in assuming a character, declared that she felt like the little woman in Mother Goose's Melodies, "If I be's I, as I suppose I be, I have a little dog at home, and he knows me!" and that when she found out who she really was, it was as grateful to her as was the little dog's joyous bark to the unfortunate woman, doubtful of her own identity. When Cornelia entered, Mary said to her: "Does your majesty feel very sore from your fall?" "Very little bruised, indeed." "Physically, I presume that you feel nothing; but you must suffer mentally," remarked Ellen. "For a queen to be so disgraced, and for a moment's pride to be brought down to the rank of a subject, and of a divorced wife, is indeed a dreadful fate." "A lofty mind," replied Cornelia, "can bear reverses." "True," rejoined Charlie. "I rejoice to see your majesty bear up so nobly: it is well that pride can sustain you in adversity, since it occasioned your descent. And yet, do you know, most sovereign lady, I have always entertained the idea that the reason you refused, in obedience to your royal husband's command, to unveil your beauty to the court, was not so much modesty and pride, as the fact of an unfortunate pimple upon your nose, and a sty upon your eye, which had the effect of making you look uncommonly ugly." "Shame, ungallant sir! never, unless my silver mirror deceived me, did I look more lovely. But if the laws of the Medes and Persians cannot be changed, neither can the modest customs of their women be altered, even at the command of the King, of Ahasuerus himself. I stand here, a martyr to the rights of my sex: I, Vashti, queen of Persia, and of all the ends of the earth, have proved myself to be strong in will, and the champion of womanhood. I shall appear before all eyes as the first asserter of woman's rights. But oh! that Jewish girl! that modest, shrinking, beauteous, hateful Esther! that _she_ should wear my crown!"