"I think we're the completest family that ever lived," said Maggie, looking around the room with great satisfaction, one evening when Colonel and Mrs. Rush were present.
"Yes," said Bessie; "I wonder somebody don't write a book about us."
"And call it 'The Happy Family,'" said Fred, mischievously, "after those celebrated bears and dogs and cats and mice who live together in the most peaceable manner so long as they have no teeth and claws, but who immediately fall to and eat one another up as soon as these are allowed to grow."
"If there is a bear among us, it must be yourself, sir," said the colonel, playfully pinching Fred's ear.
"I don't know," said Fred, rubbing the ear; "judging from your claws, I should say you were playing that character, colonel; while I shall have to take that of the unlucky puppy who has fallen into your clutches."
"I am glad you understand yourself so well, any way," returned Colonel Rush, drily.
Fred and the colonel were very fond of joking and sparring in this fashion, but Bessie always looked very sober while it was going on; for she could not bear anything that sounded like disputing, even in play; and perhaps she was about right.
But all this had put a new idea into that busy little brain of Maggie's. "Bessie," she said, the next morning, "I have a secret to tell you, and you must not tell any one else."
"Not mamma?" asked Bessie.
"No, we'll tell mamma we have a secret, and we'll let her know by and by; but I want her to be very much surprised as well as the rest of the people. Bessie, I'm going to write a book, and you may help me, if you like."