“Traitor!” said Beatrice; “but never mind, I believe we must have let him into the plot, for nobody else can be Shylock.”

“O, Bee,” whispered Henrietta, reproachfully, “don’t tease him with our nonsense.  Think of asking him to study Shylock’s part, when he has all that pile of papers on the table.”

 “Jessica, my girl,
  Look to my house.  I am right loth to go;
  There is some ill a-brewing to my rest,
  For I did dream of money-bags to-night.”

Such was Uncle Geoffrey’s reply; his face and tone so suddenly altered to the snarl of the old Jew, that his young companions at first started, and then clapped their hands in delighted admiration.

“Do you really know it all?” asked Henrietta, in a sort of respectful awe.

“It won’t cost me much trouble to get it up,” said Mr. Geoffrey Langford; “Shylock’s growls stick in one’s memory better than finer speeches.”

“Then will you really be so very kind?”

“Provided you will leave the prompter of Monday night on the table this morning,” said Uncle Geoffrey, smiling in that manner which, to a certain degree, removed any feeling of obligation, by making it seem as if it was entirely for his own diversion.  Nor could it be denied that he did actually enjoy it.

The party took up their quarters in the study, which really was the only place fit for consultations and rehearsals, since Fred and Alex could not be taken to the maids’ workroom, and none of the downstairs apartments could be made subject to the confusion incidental to their preparations.  Henrietta had many scruples at first about disturbing Uncle Geoffrey, but his daughter laughed at them all; and they were soon at an end when she perceived that he minded their chattering, spouting, and laughing, no more than if they had been so many little sparrows twittering on the eaves, but pursued the even tenor of his writing uninterruptedly, even while she fitted on his head a yellow pointed cap, which her ingenious fingers had compounded of the lining of certain ugly old curtains.

His presence in this silent state served, too, as a protection in Mrs. Langford’s periodical visitations to stir the fire; but for him, she would assuredly have found fault, and probably Beatrice would have come to a collision with her, which would have put an end to the whole scheme.

It formed a considerable addition to Henrietta’s list of his avocations, and really by making the utmost of everything he did for other people during that whole week, she made the number reach even to seventy-nine by the next Thursday morning.  The most noted of these employments were the looking over a new Act of Parliament with the county member, the curing grandmamma’s old gander of a mysterious lameness, the managing of an emigration of a whole family to New Zealand, the guessing a riddle supposed “to have no answer,” and the mending of some extraordinary spring that was broken in Uncle Roger’s new drill.  Beatrice was charmed with the list; Aunt Mary said it was delightful to be so precious to every one; and grandpapa, shaking his head at his son, said he was ashamed to find that his family contained such a Jack of all trades; to which Uncle Geoffrey replied, that it was too true that “all work and no play make Jack a very dull boy.”