The Professional Aunt | Page 6

he shouted. "Aunt Woggles wants you."
If Betty's entrance was less tempestuous than Hugh's, her embrace was not less ecstatic. She put her arms round my neck and took her legs off the ground, -- a quite simple process, and known to most aunts, I expect. The ultimate result would, no doubt, be strangulation. No one knows, of course, but among aunts it is a very general belief. Unlike Hugh, Betty kept her eyes religiously away from parcels, and she got very pink when I drew her attention to the very nobly one which was hers. Hugh stood by, urging her to open it, and offering to help her; but this Betty would not allow, and she opened it, her lips trembling with excitement.
"Is it for my very own?" she whispered.
"Absolutely for your very own, Betty," I answered.
"Oh!" said Betty. "Hugh, it's all for my very, very own; Aunt Woggles says so; but you may play with it when you are very good."
This in Hugh's eyes seemed so remote a contingency as to be scarcely worth consideration.
When the cooking-stove stood revealed in all its glory, Betty was silent for a moment; then she said in a voice choked with emotion, "I shall cook dinners for you, all for your very own self -- nobody else."
My heart sank. "You will eat the things, won't you?" she asked, "if I make proper things, just like real things?"
"Of course," I said. "Where's Sara?"
"She wouldn't have her face washed," said Betty, "so she's waiting till she's good."
Poor Sara! A strict disciplinarian is Betty!
The regeneration of Sara was evidently a matter of moments only, for the words were hardly out of Betty's mouth when Sara, in all her clean, delicious dumpiness, appeared in the doorway. If there is one thing more delicious than a grubby Sara, it is a clean Sara. Sara after gardening is delicious, but Sara clean is assuredly the cleanest thing on God's earth. I have never seen a child look so new, and so straight out of tissue-paper, as Sara can look. She stared solemnly at her Aunt Woggles, and then proceeded to walk away in the opposite direction, which was an invitation on her part to me to follow and snatch her up in my arms. She bore the hug stoically for a reasonable time, and then said, "Oo 'urt."
I realized, with the agony of remorse, that a very large aunt can by means of a brooch inflict exquisite torture on a very small niece.
She wriggled herself free and began to rearrange her ruffled garments. "Yaya's got noo soos," she announced; "ved vuns."
"No, blue, darling," I said.
"Ved," said Sara.
"No, sweetest, blue," I repeated in a somewhat professional but wholly affectionate manner.
"Ved," said Sara with great decision; so I gave it up.
"Sara always thinks blue is red," said Betty; "don't you, darling?"
"No, boo," replied Sara; so the matter dropped.
"Oo's tummin' to see Yaya's toys," said Sara.
"Am I, darling? When?"
"Now."
"But Aunt Woggles has got something for you," I said in a triumphant voice.
Sara showed no interest and pulled me by the hand toward the door.
"Hand me that, Betty," I said, pointing to the parcel on the table.
Betty handed it to me.
"Here, Sara, I said, "I have got a darling white rabbit for you! Sara! A bunny!"
"Yaya's got a blush upstairs, a lubbly blush," she said, disdaining even to look at the parcel. I held it toward her, undid it, I squeaked the squeak, I called the rabbit endearing names; but to no purpose. Sara looked the other way. A look I at last persuaded her to bestow upon the rabbit; but she gazed at its charms, unmoved.
"Yaya doesn't yike nasty bunnies, only nice blushes," she said.
"It's a hearth-brush dressed up," whispered Betty, "and it's dressed up in my dolly's cape, at least in one of my dolly's capes; she loves it. Aunt Woggles, do you think it is a good thing to make hearth-brushes say their prayers? Sara does."
I followed Sara disconsolately to the nursery and was shown the beauties of the "lubbly blush."
Nannie bemoaned her darling's taste, and the nursery-maid blushed for very shame.
"Not but what it's quite clean, miss," Nannie said; "it's been thoroughly washed in carbolic."
Meanwhile Sara was rocking herself backward and forward in a manner truly maternal and singing her version of "Jesus Tender" to her "lubbly blush."
"I thought she would love the rabbit," I said, and Nannie, by way of consolation, assured me that there was really nothing Sara loved so much as a rabbit. I suppose Nannie knew, and that it was only another instance of the folly of judging from appearances.
"You will love your bunny, won't you, darling?" said Nannie; "nice bunny! "
"Nasty bunny," said Sara with great decision.
"That's naughty, baby," said Nannie; "nice bunny!"
"Naughty bunny," said Sara, "vake Yaya's yubbly vitty blush." And she resumed