'Mamma will make me dress up in a stiff clean frock, and have my hair
curled over again just because some one _may_ come. I want to play in
the garden, and I can't all fussed up this way. I do hate company and
clothes and manners, don't you?' answered Kitty, with a spiteful pull at
her sash.

'I hate being ordered round everlastingly, and badgered from morning
till night. I'd just like to be let alone,' and Harry went on his way
to captivity with a grim shake of the head and a very strong desire to
run away from home altogether.

'So would I, mamma is so fussy. I never have any peace of my life,'
sighed Kitty, feeling that her lot was a hard one.

The martyr in brown linen went up, and the other martyr in white cambric
went down, both looking as they felt, rebellious and unhappy. Yet a
stranger seeing them and their home would have thought they had
everything heart could desire. All the comforts that money could buy,
and all the beauty that taste could give seemed gathered round them.
Papa and mamma loved the two little people dearly, and no real care or
sorrow came to trouble the lives that would have been all sunshine but
for one thing. With the best intentions in the world, Mr. and Mrs.
Fairbairn were spoiling their children by constant fault-finding, too
many rules and too little sympathy with the active young souls and
bodies under their care. As Harry said, they were ordered about,
corrected and fussed over from morning till night, and were getting so
tired of it that the most desperate ideas began to enter their heads.

Now, in the house was a quiet old maiden aunt, who saw the mischief
brewing, and tried to cure it by suggesting more liberty and less
'nagging,' as the boys call it. But Mr. and Mrs. F. always silenced her
by saying,--

'My dear Betsey, you never had a family, so how _can_ you know anything
about the proper management of children?'

They quite forgot that sister Betsey had brought up a flock of
motherless brothers and sisters, and done it wisely and well, though she
never got any thanks or praise for it, and never expected any for doing
her duty faithfully. If it had not been for aunty, Harry and Kitty would
have long ago carried out their favorite plan, and have run away
together, like Roland and Maybird. She kept them from this foolish prank
by all sorts of unsuspected means, and was their refuge in troublous
times. For all her quiet ways, aunty was full of fun as well as sympathy
and pa