and he jumped up again and called out, 'Bless me! what is that?' And
then he began poking, and poking, and just as he had poked out the
whole bundle, and was putting on his spectacles to see what it was,
Aunt Izzie came in."

"Well, what next?" cried the children, immensely tickled.

"Oh!" continued Katy, "Aunt Izzie put on her glasses too, and screwed up
her eyes--you know the way she does, and she and the judge read a little
bit of it; that part at the first, you remember, where Bop steals the
blue-pills, and the Wizard tries to throw him into the sea. You can't
think how funny it was to hear Aunt Izzie reading 'Edwitha' out loud--"
and Katy went into convulsions at the recollection "where she got to 'Oh
Bop--my angel Bop--' I just rolled under the table, and stuffed the
table-cover in my mouth to keep from screaming right out. By and by I
heard her call Debby, and give her the papers, and say: 'Here is a mass
of trash which I wish you to put at once into the kitchen fire.' And she
told me afterward that she thought I would be in an insane asylum before
I was twenty. It was too bad," ended Katy half laughing and half
crying, "to burn up the new chapter and all. But there's one good
thing--she didn't find 'The Fairy of the Dry Goods Box,' that was
stuffed farther back in the seat.

"And now," continued the mistress of ceremonies, "we will begin. Miss
Hall will please rise."

"Miss Hall," much flustered at her fine name, got up with very
red cheeks.

"It was once upon a time," she read, "Moonlight lay on the halls of the