rsuit or favourite
author, some pretty feminine art, or delicate womanly counsel enforced
by those narratives of real life that are more interesting than any
fiction: it may be only the periodical return of gifts and kindness,
and the store of family histories that no one else can tell; but we all
owe something to such an aunt or uncle--the fairy godmothers of real
life.

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