“O, you must, you silly child,” said Beatrice.  “I have such designs for dressing you!  Besides, I mean to be Mustardseed, and make grandpapa laugh by my by-play at the giant Ox-beef.”

“But consider, Bee,” said Henrietta, “how much too tall I am for a fairy.  It would be too absurd to make Titania as large as Bottom himself—­spoil the whole picture.  You might surely get some little girls to be the other fairies, and take Titania yourself.”

“Certainly it might conciliate people to have their own children made part of the show,” said Beatrice.  “Little Anna Carey has sense enough, I think; ay, and the two Nevilles, if they will not be shy.  We will keep you to come out in grand force in the last scene—­Queen Eleanor sucking the poison.  Aunt Mary has a certain black-lace scarf that will make an excellent Spanish mantilla.  Or else suppose you are Berengaria, coming to see King Richard when he was ’old-man-of-the-mountains.’”

“No, no,” cried Fred, “stick to the Queen Eleanor scene.  We will have no more blacking of faces.  Yesterday I was too late down stairs because I could not get the abominable stuff out of my hair.”

“And it would be a cruel stroke to be taken for Philip Carey again, in the gentleman’s own presence, too,” said Beatrice.  “Monsieur is apparemment the apothecaire de famille.  Do you remember, Henrietta, the French governess in Miss Edgworth’s book?”

“Jessie smiled and nodded as if she was perfectly enchanted with the mistake,” said Henrietta.

“And I do not wonder at it,” said Beatrice, “the mistake, I mean.  Fred’s white hands there have just the look of a doctor’s; of course Roger thought the only use of them could be to feel pulses, and Philip, for want of something better to do, is always trying for a genteel look.”

“You insulting creature!” said Fred.  “Just as if I tried to look genteel.”

“You do, then, whether you try or not.  You can’t help it, you know, and I am very sorry for you; but you do stand and walk and hold out your hand just as Philip is always trying to do, and it is no wonder Roger thought he had succeeded in attaining his object.”

“But what a goose the man must be to make such absurdity his object,” said Henrietta.

“He could not be a Carey and be otherwise,” said Busy Bee.  “And besides, what would you have him do?  As to getting any practice, unless his kith and kin choose to victimise themselves philanthrop-ically according to Roger’s proposal, I do not see what chance he has, where everyone knows the extent of a Carey’s intellects; and what is left for the poor man to do but to study the cut of his boots?”

“If you say much more about it, Queenie,” said Henrietta, “you will make Fred dance in Bottom’s hob-nailed shoes.”

“Ah! it is a melancholy business,” said Beatrice; “but it cannot be helped.  Fred cannot turn into a clodhopper.  But what earthquake is this?” exclaimed she, as the front door was dashed open with such violence as to shake the house, and the next moment Alexander rushed in, heated and almost breathless.  “Rats! rats!” was his cry; “Fred, that’s right.  But where is Uncle Geoffrey?”