I was rather disappointed that Humphrey didn’t answer, but after a long time he suddenly said quite loud, “Like Shakespeare.” Fortunately, Fräulein didn’t understand. It was rather silly of him too, because of course I didn’t mean to make it long like that. Why, Humph has taken six months to learn “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” and he still says, “Half a leg, half a leg, half a leg onwards”; besides, I knew that Violet and Ted would like to come in too. That afternoon I began to write the play. I tried at first to make it all up out of my own head, only when I sat down nothing seemed to come. So I thought I’d adapt it out of a book, like Father says all the best plays are done nowadays. I took Aytoun’s “_Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers_.” I’m very fond of them, you see, and I know them nearly all by heart, but I don’t believe it was me that loosened the frontispiece as Fräulein says, just because I took the book to bed one evening. Not that we read in bed, because Mother’s very particular about that, but I like to feel that Dundee and the Young Pretender are near me all the night. It was the “_Burial March of Dundee_” that I thought would be the best for the play, but it didn’t seem to need much adapting, because we could just have a bier with Ted as Dundee (he’s the lightest, and his hair is curly). We three would march on bearing it, and I’d recite the lay; then we’d march off again of course. So, as this was easy, I thought we’d have another play as well, and I settled on “_Young Lochinvar_.” Humphrey would be Lochinvar; I should have liked to be the bride, who is the heroine, of course, but then I settled it would be better if Violet was, partly because I thought Mother would have been pleased at my not being selfish, and partly because it looks so silly to see the lady taller than the gentleman, like when Cousin Sophy was married. Then I and Ted would be the wicked mother and father. Of course, he’s heaps smaller than me, but that didn’t matter because we’d both be old, and he might have shrunk quicker. Our old nurse told us once that she’d got to the time of life when she was growing downwards like a cow’s tail; and certainly, when she came to see us the other day, she did seem a lot shorter than she used to be when we were little and she lived with us. The others were all very pleased with their parts, and it was settled that the acting should be on April the 10th, which is Ted’s birthday, and Fräulein asked some children to come to tea. It didn’t leave us very much time, but I thought it would do, because I never guessed how slow Humphrey would be. At each rehearsal he seemed to get worse, and the dress one was awful.