"Mother thought it would be nice if we asked them to tea to-day, and hoped it would keep them together better; and then John and I have been devising how we could please them."
"Did you think of a Christmas-tree?" asked Hugh eagerly.
Agnes shook her head. "It was of no use thinking of it; we hadn't money enough. No, we thought of games; only the boys are apt to get rough, and without mother and father it seemed a great undertaking."
"So it is," said Alice; "for don't you remember what a dreadful noise they made one year when we had them?"
"Yes," answered John; "so, as I was passing along the Strand the day after father went to America, I noticed 'magic-lanterns for school treats,' posted up very large in a window, and it gave me the idea of using mine for our little treat, and hiring a few more slides to make it last longer."
"Yes, we haven't so very many slides," said Minnie, considering.
"Pretty well," answered John; "but at anyrate two dozen more will be an advantage."
"And after the magic-lantern is over?" asked Alice.
"Agnes is going to talk to them, or tell them a story, and after that they'll have an orange."
"Oh!" said Minnie, "I shall like that."