Frauleins, and the heavenly mademoiselles. At this Zerlina looked
a little pained, and I was sorry I was cross, but I felt her want
of sympathy for Thomas. But then she had never passed that closed
door.




Chapter VII


As a professional aunt must live somewhere, if only to simplify
the delivery of telegrams, it is as well perhaps to explain where
I live and why. The answer to the where, is London, and to the
why, because it is the best place for all professionals to live
in. Many were the suggestions that I should live in the country.
Careful relatives and good housewives saw a chance of cheap and
fresh eggs, cheap and large chickens, and cheap and freshly
gathered vegetables, which showed, in the words of Dr. Johnson, a
triumph of hope over experience, for I have always found that
there are no eggs so dear as those laid by the hens of friends, no
chickens so thin as those kept by relatives, no vegetables so
expensive as those grown by acquaintances. But a professional
aunt would of course be expected to make special terms, although
her hens, like those of other people, would eat corn, and railways
would charge just the same for carrying her goods, whether they
were consigned to sisters-in-law or not, and the expense of the
carriage is the reason invariably given why things are so dear
when bought from friends. Friends, too, have a way of sending
chickens with their feathers on, whereas the chickens one knows by