waist, leaving as sacrifice to custom only her petticoat. Up and down
her body sways in rhythmic motion, her hands stroking affectionately
her own knees; the while I, with paper knife for sword, or horse of
broomstick, stand opposite her, flourishing and declaiming. Sometimes
I am a knight and she a wicked ogre. She is slain, growling and
swearing, and at once becomes the beautiful princess that I secure and
bear away with me upon the prancing broomstick. So long as the
princess is merely holding sweet converse with me from her high-barred
window, the scene is realistic, at least, to sufficiency; but the
bearing away has to be make-believe; for my aunt cannot be persuaded
to leave her chair before the fire, and the everlasting rubbing of her
knees.

At other times, with the assistance of the meat chopper, I am an
Indian brave, and then she is Laughing Water or Singing Sunshine, and
we go out scalping together; or in less bloodthirsty moods I am the
Fairy Prince and she the Sleeping Beauty. But in such parts she is
not at her best. Better, when seated in the centre of the up-turned
table, I am Captain Cook, and she the Cannibal Chief.

"I shall skin him and hang him in the larder till Sunday week," says
my aunt, smacking her lips, "then he'll be just in right condition;
not too tough and not too high." She was always strong in detail, was
my aunt Fan.

I do not wish to deprive my aunt of any credit due to her, but the
more I exercise my memory for evidence, the more I am convinced that
her compliance on these occasions was not conceived entirely in the
spirit of self-sacrifice. Often would she suggest the game and even
the theme; in such case, casting herself invariably for what, in old