Miss Kittenish is now all bustle and playfulness, and she once more takes advantage of my amiability, and I am called upon to act in a charade, then to play “Dumb Crambo,” and eventually to sit cross-legged upon a broomstick poised upon two chairs, an abominable torture if you succeed, while if you do not, you fall with a sudden bump to the ground. In any case you afford boisterous merriment to the spectators, who are neither on the broomstick nor on the ground. After this my amiability is conquered by my increasing mental depression, aided by the bodily torture involved in the fiendish broomstick trick, and I make all sorts of excuses to elude Miss Kittenish in her fresh devices. She is, however, untiring, and her resource in the matter of parlour-games and tricks is positively amazing. Of course, it is impossible to adopt all her suggestions on a single evening. I diplomatically propose that we should keep some novelties for Christmas; but there is no escape, and, after we are physically wearied by the more active games, paper and pencils are handed round, and we are set to play “consequences,” then to write doggerel verses, then to remember as many towns and countries beginning with G as we can in a given number of minutes, and other equally aimless occupations. And what annoys me is that the majority of sycophantic guests actually encourage Miss Kittenish in these suburban atrocities, pretending they are amused, while I am doomed to endure this boredom now and again by family tradition. If I were not so amiable, I would break from it. I would never go there again, and then I should be accused of inconstancy to old friends. This is chaining myself to a sentiment, certainly; but I would Miss Kittenish were not so playful, or that she confined her volatile spirits to the parish schoolroom, or the seaside boarding-house, where she is quite an acquisition and in her element. To one of these establishments at Eastbourne Miss Kittenish sometimes accompanies her invalid mother, and the announcement that “Miss Kittenish is coming” produces as much pleasurable excitement as the preliminary announcement of a visit from Sanger’s Circus to the town of Sleepy Hollow. A vision of abnormal festivities and something new in parlour-games is immediately conjured up, while it is well known that Miss Kittenish is a perfect mine of conundrums, old and new. For years past she has collected them in manuscript.