The Professional Aunt | Page 8

appeared, carrying a deliciously rosy Sara with her hair done on the top, which makes her more than ever fascinating; and in her arms she carried her bunny - Sara's arms, I mean, of course. "Nice bunny," she said.
"Who gave you your bunny?" I asked.
"Jesus!" said Sara, triumphantly nodding her head and opening her eyes very wide. "Jesus makes all ve bunnies, and all ve vitty dickey birds, and all ve vitty fowers, and all ve big fowers and all ve ponge cakes, and Yaya."
"And what is Sara going to do with her bunny?" I asked.
"Vuv it," she said with ecstasy.
"Shall I leave her?" asked Nannie.
"What a foolish question, Nannie!" I said. "Could any one send away a blue dressing-be-gowned Sara?"
"And shall I take the others, miss?"
"Do," I replied.
They went and left me in sole possession of Sara.
"Shall I tell Sara a story?" I said. She nodded her head.
"A storlie all about bunnies."
So I began, "Once upon a time there was a big bunny."
"A vitty bunny," said Sara.
"A little bunny," I said. "Once upon a time there was a little bunny."
"A velly, velly vitty bunny," said Sara.
"Once upon a time there was a very, very little bunny, "I repeated, emphasizing the very, very little," as Sara had done. She cuddled into the bedclothes, evidently quite satisfied with the beginning as it now stood. "And the very, very little bunny lived in a nice hole --"
"A nice bed," said Sara, "a velly nice bed and not in a vitty bed, but in a velly big bed, a velly, velly big bed with Aunt Woggles."
"In a nice big bed with Aunt Woggles," I said, "and he was a very good little bunny."
At this Sara rose in the bed and looked at me very severely.
" Did he say his palayers eberly day?" she asked.
"No, not prayers, darling. Bunnies don't say prayers; children say prayers."
"Naughty bunnies!" said Sara with great severity.
Dreading a religious discussion, which Sara loves, I proposed changing the story to "The Three Bears." She acquiesced with jumps of joy up and down, just where one would not choose to be jumped upon, and said, "Ve felee belairs."
Here I fared no better: my version of the story was so hopelessly wrong, and I received such crushing correction at the hands of Sara, that I was glad to relinquish my office of story-teller and suggested that she should tell a story instead.
This was evidently what she had wanted to do all along, for she began at once. She tells a story very much as she says her prayers, at the same terrific pace certainly. First of all she swallowed and took a deep breath, then she began, "Vunce there was a vitty blush -- and not a bad nasty blush -- it said its palayers ebery morning an nannie said good girly an then the blush vent to sleep in a vitty bed with Yaya."
"Go slower, darling," I said. "Aunt Woggles can't quite understand."
"Yan -- ven -- Yaya -- voke up ve vitty -- belush said, 'Good- morning,' yan Yaya said, 'Good-morning,' yan it was a nice bunny yan not a nasty bunny any more."
Here Sara's thoughts were distracted, and the story ended abruptly for want of breath, or possibly of story. She refused to go on, and when pressed said with great decision, "Dey's all dead."
She then had her share of camel-rides and bears, and by the time Nannie came I began to feel that I had earned my breakfast. I was one of the first down, and Bindon was evidently waiting for me, because as I went into the dining-room he took up his position behind a certain chair, which action on his part plainly indicated that I was to sit there. I wondered why. Could it be that I had arrived at the age when it is advisable for a woman to sit back to the light at breakfast? Was this only another instance of Bindon's devotion to us all? That the credit of the family is paramount in his mind, I know! All this flashed through my mind, but I saw a moment later that it was not of my complexion that Bindon thought, for on a plate before the chair behind which he stood, lay a small dark gray wad about the size of a five-shilling piece. I hesitated., and Bindon said in an undertone, "Miss Betty made it." Not a muscle of his face moved.
I sat down and gazed at the awful result of my present to Betty. The -- what shall I call it? -- was gray, as I said before; it had a crisscross pattern on it, deeply indented, and snugly sunk in the middle of it was a currant. I sighed. My duty as a professional aunt was clear: had I not in a