“At first they merely sat on the window-seat and discussed the several untoward things that they wished would happen to Emma. Having hanged, drawn and quartered that liberal-proportioned lady until they could no more, they felt better. Then they looked over their mother’s room in search of amusement, with the result that the black-walnut bureau, containing the toys with which they were not allowed to play, was made to give forth the wealth of its treasures. The floor of Mrs. Kaatenstein’s bed-room presented a motley appearance. Jenny Kaatenstein even forgot to miss her bit of unleavened bread in her excitement over the fact that she actually was holding her own huge wax doll in her lap. And the circus and the steam-engine and the tinkling piano and the tea-sets and the barking dogs and the picture books and the manifold other things were at last put to those uses for which they had been destined. And they even went to the jewel-case and got out their watches. “But Harry Kaatenstein and Leah Kaatenstein and Jenny Kaatenstein, though they were pleasantly excited, were yet highly uneasy in their minds. They knew they had yet to render up payment for the day’s business.---- “The rest of the tale is obvious enough,” said my friend Annabel Lee, laughing gently and changing her tone. “But please tell it,” said I, with much eagerness. “Well, then,” said my friend Annabel Lee:-- “The afternoon waned, and Mrs. Kaatenstein came home. She heard unusual noises in her beloved duck-yard, and fled thither, as fast as her goodly proportions would allow. “Her eyes met a sight which was maddening to them. “They beheld little Willy Kaatenstein, looking decidedly pale and puffy, sitting weakly on a box containing a setting-duck--and the two objectionable Kelly children actually at that moment feeding her choicest goose with gum-drops. Scattered all about the once neat duck yard was rubbish in frightful variety, and a half-dozen of her tiny ducklings were busy at an atrocious watermelon. Certainly no one but those Irish young ones could have brought in so much litter. It did not take Bill and Katy Kelly long to gather that they were not wanted there. Mrs. Kaatenstein quite quenched, for the time, their fondness for feasts. As they went, she ordered them to take their vile belongings with them, which they were willing enough to do--as much of them as they could carry. They bestowed an apprehensive glance on little Willy Kaatenstein--but little Willy Kaatenstein’s face was only pale, puffy and very passive. Having dispersed the Kellys, Mrs. Kaatenstein led her son into the house and stopped in the kitchen to demand of Emma why she allowed such things to happen, and ordered her to go at once and clean out the duck-yard. Emma obeyed, first giving up Mrs. Kaatenstein’s bed-room key and explaining her own possession of it.