shines. This aunt she looks upon as something more than useful, and
asks her to stay at other times than when the children have measles,
and whooping-cough, or the bedroom is to be re-papered. Zerlina
perhaps is unfortunate. She says, "Have you ever noticed how the
children always have something when you come to stay?" Zerlina is
quite pretty when she puts her head on one side. I answer, "Yes,
Zerlina, I have noticed it curiously enough," but I do not say that
I suspect that at the very first sound of a cough, at the very first
appearance of a rash, this aunt is urged to come and stay.

Diana accepts such services; the mother of such creatures as
Betty, Hugh, and Sara is forced to do so by very reason of their
existence. But those services she accepts with generous
appreciation; not that an aunt wants thanks, but being human,
pitifully so, even the most professional of them, she is conscious
where they are not expressed, in some form or other. A smile is
enough.

So to Hames I went, in spite of Zerlina's appeal, with treasures
deep down in my box for Betty, Hugh, and Sara. Sara is of all
babes in the world the most fascinating, say sisters-in-law other
than Diana what they will. As a tribute to this fascination, the
largest white rabbit, woolly to a degree undreamed of -- at least
I hoped so -- in Sara's world, was carefully packed in my box,
wrapped cunningly in tissue-paper, and guarded on all sides by
clothing of a soft description. I have known a chiffon skirt put
to strange uses in the interests of Sara.

I found the carriage waiting for me, and was touched to see that
Croft, the old coachman, had come to meet me himself. It is an