Molly got the laugh this time, for she could not resist giving poor Boo the cuff which had been hanging over him so long.  She gave it with unconscious energy, and Boo cried “Ow!” so naturally that all the children were delighted and wanted it repeated.  But Boo declined, and the scenes which followed were found quite as much to their taste, having been expressly prepared for the little people.

Mother Goose’s Reception was really very funny, for Ralph was the old lady, and had hired a representation of the immortal bird from a real theatre for this occasion.  There they stood, the dame in her pointed hat, red petticoat, cap, and cane, with the noble fowl, a good deal larger than life, beside her, and Grif inside, enjoying himself immensely as he flapped the wings, moved the yellow legs, and waved the long neck about, while unearthly quacks issued from the bill.  That was a great surprise for the children, and they got up in their seats to gaze their fill, many of them firmly believing that they actually beheld the blessed old woman who wrote the nursery songs they loved so well.

Then in came, one after another, the best of the characters she has made famous, while a voice behind the scenes sang the proper rhyme as each made their manners to the interesting pair.  “Mistress Mary,” and her “pretty maids all in a row,” passed by to their places in the background; “King Cole” and his “fiddlers three” made a goodly show; so did the royal couple, who followed the great pie borne before them, with the “four-and-twenty blackbirds” popping their heads out in the most delightful way.  Little “Bo-Peep” led a woolly lamb and wept over its lost tail, for not a sign of one appeared on the poor thing.  “Simple Simon” followed the pie-man, gloating over his wares with the drollest antics.  The little wife came trundling by in a wheelbarrow and was not upset; neither was the lady with “rings on her fingers and bells on her toes,” as she cantered along on a rocking-horse.  “Bobby Shafto’s” yellow hair shone finely as he led in the maid whom he came back from sea to marry.  “Miss Muffet,” bowl in hand, ran away from an immense black spider, which waggled its long legs in a way so life-like that some of the children shook in their little shoes.  The beggars who came to town were out in full force, “rags, tags, and velvet gowns,” quite true to life.  “Boy Blue” rubbed his eyes, with hay sticking in his hair, and tooted on a tin horn as if bound to get the cows out of the corn.  Molly, with a long-handled frying-pan, made a capital “Queen,” in a tucked-up gown, checked apron, and high crown, to good “King Arthur,” who, very properly, did not appear after stealing the barley-meal, which might be seen in the pan tied up in a pudding, like a cannon-ball, ready to fry.

But Tobias, Molly’s black cat, covered himself with glory by the spirit with which he acted his part in,

  “Sing, sing, what shall I sing? 
  The cat’s run away with the pudding-bag string.”