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Page 23
The benefits which Sam and Dot reaped from Aunt Penelope's visits may
be summed up under the heads of presents and stories, with a general
leaning to indulgence in the matters of punishment, lessons, and going
to bed, which perhaps is natural to aunts and uncles who have no
positive responsibilities in the young people's education, and are not
the daily sufferers by the lack of due discipline.
Aunt Penelope's presents were lovely. Aunt Penelope's stories were
charming. There was generally a moral wrapped up in them, like the
motto in a cracker-bonbon; but it was quite in the inside, so to speak,
and there was abundance of smart paper and sugar-plums.
All things considered, it was certainly most proper that the
much-injured Dot should be dressed out in her best, and have access to
dessert, the dining-room, and Aunt Penelope, whilst Sam was kept
up-stairs. And yet it was Dot who (her first burst of grief being over)
fought stoutly for his pardon all the time she was being dressed, and
was afterwards detected in the act of endeavouring to push fragments of
raspberry tart through the nursery keyhole.
"You GOOD thing!" Sam emphatically exclaimed, as he heard her in fierce
conflict on the other side of the door with the nurse who found
her--"You GOOD thing! leave me alone, for I deserve it."
He really was very penitent He was too fond of Dot not to regret the
unexpected degree of distress he had caused her; and Dot made much of
his penitence in her intercessions in the drawing-room.
"Sam is so very sorry," she said; "he says he knows he deserves it. I
think he ought to come down. He is so _very_ sorry!"
Aunt Penelope, as usual, took the lenient side, joining her entreaties
to Dot's, and it ended in Master Sam's being hurriedly scrubbed and
brushed, and shoved into his black velvet suit, and sent down-stairs,
rather red about the eyelids, and looking very sheepish.
"Oh, Dot!" he exclaimed, as soon as he could get her into a corner, "I
am so very, very sorry! particularly about the tea-things."
"Never mind," said Dot, "I don't care; and I've asked for a story, and
we're going into the library." As Dot said this, she jerked her head
expressively in the direction of the sofa, where Aunt Penelope was just
casting on stitches preparatory to beginning a pair of her famous
ribbed socks for Papa, whilst she gave to Mamma's conversation that
sympathy which (like her knitting-needles) was always at the service of
her large circle of friends. Dot anxiously watched the bow on the top
of her cap as it danced and nodded with the force of Mamma's
observations. At last it gave a little chorus of jerks, as one should
say, "Certainly, undoubtedly." And then the story came to an end, and
Dot, who had been slowly creeping nearer, fairly took Aunt Penelope by
the hand, and carried her off, knitting and all, to the library.
"Now, please," said Dot, when she had struggled into a chair that was
too tall for her.
"Stop a minute!" cried Sam, who was perched in the opposite one, "the
horse-hair tickles my legs."
"Put your pocket-handkerchief under them, as I do," said Dot.
"_Now_, Aunt Penelope."
"No, wait," groaned Sam; "it isn't big enough; it only covers one leg."
Dot slid down again, and ran to Sam.
"Take my handkerchief for the other."
"But what will you do?" said Sam.
"Oh, I don't care," said Dot, scrambling back into her place. "Now,
Aunty, please."
And Aunt Penelope began.
"THE LAND OF LOST TOYS.
"I suppose people who have children transfer their childish follies and
fancies to them, and become properly sedate and grown-up. Perhaps it is
because I am an old maid, and have none, that some of my nursery whims
stick to me, and I find myself liking things, and wanting things, quite
out of keeping with my cap and time of life. For instance. Anything in
the shape of a toy-shop (from a London bazaar to a village window, with
Dutch dolls, leather balls, and wooden battledores) quite unnerves me,
so to speak. When I see one of those boxes containing a jar, a churn, a
kettle, a pan, a coffee-pot, a cauldron on three legs, and sundry
dishes, all of the smoothest wood, and with the immemorial red flower
on one side of each vessel, I fairly long for an excuse for playing
with them, and for trying (positively for the last time) if the lids
_do_ come off, and whether the kettle will (literally, as well as
metaphorically) hold water. Then if, by good or ill luck, there is a
child flattening its little nose against the window with longing eyes,
my purse is soon empty; and as it toddles off with a square parcel
under one arm, and a lovely being in black ringlets and white tissue
paper in the other, I wish that I were worthy of being asked to join
the ensuing play. Don't suppose there is any generosity in this. I have
only done what we are all glad to do. I have found an excuse for
indulging a pet weakness. As I said, it is not merely the new and
expensive toys that attract me; I think my weakest corner is where the
penny boxes lie, the wooden tea-things (with the above-named flower in
miniature), the soldiers on their lazy tongs, the nine-pins, and the
tiny farm.
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