"No, I'm not. Let me alone." "Come here, or I won't read your sentence for you," called Alice. And Will reluctantly withdrew, for he knew from experience that Alice would keep her word. "All right. Now go ahead; not too fast. Here! Wait a minute! Let me write her down. I don't intend to miss to-morrow if I can help it. And old Romulus will call me up on this very passage, I know. Be just like him, though, to strike me on the review." At that minute the door opened and in came George, the elder boy, and the oldest of the group of children. He hung up hat and coat, and strolled into the room. "Where's mother?" "She's in the other room," answered Bess. "Father's been asleep, and mother was afraid he was going to have a fever." "That's one of your stories," said George, who seemed in a good-natured mood. He sat down and drew his little sister towards him and whispered to her: "Say, Bess, I want some money again." "Awfully?" whispered Bess. "Yes, for a special reason. Do you think you could let me have a little?" "Why, of course! you can have all my month's allowance. But why don't you ask father?" "No; I've asked him too much lately. He refused point blank last time. I didn't like the way he spoke." "Well, you can have all mine," said Bess, whispering. George and she were great friends, and there was not a thing that Bessie would not have done for her big brother, who was her hero. What he wanted with so much money she never asked. They were still whispering together, and Clara had just risen to go upstairs, and Alice and Will had finished the translation, and Will was just on the point of seeing how near he could come to throwing the Commentaries of Caesar into an ornamental Japanese jar across the room, when Mrs. Hardy parted the curtains at the arch and beckoned her children to come into the next room. Her face was exceedingly pale, and she was trembling as if with some great terror. The children all cried out in surprise and hurried into the next room. But before relating what happened there, we will follow Mr. Hardy into the experience he had, just after falling asleep upon the lounge by the open fire.