"I know you are right, Aunt Patricia," said the doctor, "but I seem to
remember my own boyhood so clearly, the way I thought and felt and
looked at things, that I have a very warm sympathy for my little lads
when they go wrong."

Miss Patricia rose to go down and prepare the lemon jelly that Phil
had asked for, saying, as she moved toward the stairs:

"Well, I love Phil and Stuart dearly. I'm devoted to them, and willing
to do anything in my power for their comfort, but I'm free to confess
that I don't understand them. I never did understand boys." Then she
tripped over me as I nearly upset us both in my frantic efforts to get
out of her way. "Or monkeys either," she added, shaking her skirts at
me with a displeased "_Shoo_," as if I had been a silly old hen.

It was very quiet about the house for a few days, and then some jolly
times began in Phil's room. As soon as the boys were allowed to visit
him I showed them some of my tricks, and kept them in roars of
laughter. I wheeled little Elsie's doll carriage around the room, and
I sat up with the doctor's pipe in my mouth, I drilled and danced, and
performed as if I had been on a stage. It was wonderful to them, for
they had never guessed how much I knew. One day I sat down in a little
rocking-chair with a kitten in my arms, and rocked and hugged it as if
it had been a baby. It wasn't breathing when I stopped. The boys said
I hugged it too hard, but they kept on bringing me something to rock
every day, until five kittens and a rabbit had been put to sleep so
soundly that they wouldn't wake up.

One day Phil was moved into Miss Patricia's room while his own was
being cleaned. Of course no boys were allowed to go in there with him