“We will not persecute your chafer, Fred; but his place is not in your pocket, nor on the study-table, my boy; take him away,” said his mother; and at the same time his aunt called to Rikli through the open door:—­

“Come back, dear little girl, and don’t behave as if a little beetle could eat you up alive!  If you go through life shrieking out over every trifle, you will some time or other be punished for it; for no one will pay any attention to your screams, even when there is something really the matter.”

Rikli came back into the room just as Fred was carrying the beetle out, and, as they met in the door-way, Fred said:—­

“I’ll make up a poem about you.  You are the musician with the sweet tones of your voice, and I am a brother-artist, a poet”

“Yes, yes! a lovely piece of poetry can be made about your pockets full of long-legged creatures, that come crawling out and stretch their horrid long legs all over the table!”

“Of course there could,” said Fred stoutly, and went off to lodge his useful persecuted gold-chafer in his cabinet.

When the children were clearing away their work, before going to bed, their mother said:—­

“To-morrow afternoon is a holiday, and I want you, Emma, to go and visit the little sick girl, Nora Stanhope; and it will be well for you to go every holiday and Sundays too.  She will be very glad to see you.”

“It will be a good thing for Emma to have a friend of her own; then perhaps she’ll let other people’s friends alone,” said Oscar, in a tone of satisfaction.

Emma made no reply, but went quietly to bed; she had not the least idea of giving up her friendship for Fani, to please anybody.

As they were all going upstairs in a little family procession,—­first Oscar, then Emma, then the aunt, and last the two younger children,—­Fred turned to Rikli and said:—­

“Haha, Rikli, this goes capitally!” and he sang in a loud voice to a tune of his own making:—­

    “Hanseli is a cry-baby,
      Rikli is another;
    She is so much like him,
      He must be her brother.”

Rikli was breaking out into an indignant cry at this unflattering comparison, but her aunt turned and took her by the hand, saying:—­

“Not again to-day, my dear, nor yet to-morrow, I hope.  Show Fred that he is wholly wrong in likening you to that spoilt child.”

It often happened, as to-night, that the mother was prevented by other duties from going up with the children to see them safe in their beds; and then the aunt had to go the rounds alone, and the children often came near quarrelling over her, for each one thought that the others had more than their fair share of her time and attention.  To-night Fred was the unlucky one, and when his turn came, at last, he said quite earnestly:—­

“I wish, aunty, that you could be divided in two and then multiplied by four, so that we could have two of you apiece; and then we should all get our rights.”