But what should the word be?  Every one had predilections of their own--some for comedy, others for tragedy; some for extemporary acting, others for Shakespeare.  Beatrice, with her eye for drawing, already grouped her dramatis personae, so as to display Henrietta’s picturesque face and figure to the greatest advantage, and had designs of making her and Fred represent Catherine and Henry Seyton, whom, as she said, she had always believed to be exactly like them.  Fred was inclined for “another touch at Prince Hal,” and devised numerous ways of acting Anonymous, for the sake of “Anon, anon, sir.”  Henrietta wanted to contrive something in which Queen Bee might appear as an actual fairy bee, and had very pretty visions of making her a beneficent spirit in a little fanciful opera, for which she had written three or four verses, when Fred put an end to it be pronouncing it “nonsense and humbug.”

So passed Tuesday, without coming to any decision, and Henrietta was beginning to fear that they would never fix at all, when on Wednesday morning Beatrice came down in an ecstasy with the news, that by some chance a wig of her papa’s was in the house, and a charade they must and would have which would bring in the wig.  “Come and see it,” said she, drawing her two cousins into the study after breakfast:  the study being the safest place for holding counsel on these secret subjects.  “There now, is it not charming?  O, a law charade we must have, that is certain!”

Fred and Henrietta, who had never chanced to see a barrister’s wig before, were greatly diverted with its little tails, and tried it on in turn.  While Henrietta was in the midst of her laugh at the sight of her own fair ringlets hanging out below the tight grey rolls, the door suddenly opened, and gave entrance to its owner, fiercely exclaiming, “What! nothing safe from you, you impertinent kittens?”

“O, Uncle Geoffrey, I beg your pardon!” cried Henrietta, blushing crimson.

“Don’t take it off till I have looked at you,” said Uncle Geoffrey.  “Why, you would make a capital Portia!”

“Yes, yes!” cried Queen Bee, “that is it:  Portia she shall be, and I’ll be Nerissa.”

“Oh, no, Queenie, I could never be Portia!” said Henrietta:  “I am sure I can’t.”

“But I have set my heart on being the ‘little scrubby lawyer’s clerk,’” said Busy Bee; “it is what I am just fit for; and let me see—­Fred shall be Antonio, and that will make you plead from your very heart, and you shall have Alex for your Bassanio.”

“But the word.  Do you mean to make it fit in with Falstaff and Catherine Seyton?” said Henrietta.

“Let me see,” said Beatrice; “bond—­bondage, jew—­jeweller, juniper,—­”

“Lawsuit,” said Fred.  “Ay, don’t you see, all the scenes would come out of the ‘Merchant of Venice.’  There is ‘law’ when the old Jew is crying out for his ducats, and—­but halloo!” and Fred stood aghast at the sight of his uncle, whose presence they had all forgotten in their eagerness.