hould be so esteemed by other women. But as the old
story goes, "Hush, darling, hush, the doctor knows best," so must we
say,--"Mothers know best."

Another qualification in a professional aunt, desirable if not
indispensable, is tact. If she should be possessed of ever so little, it
will save her a considerable amount of bother. She won't, in a moment of
mental aberration, praise dark-eyed children to Zerlina, whose children
have blue eyes. Should she do so, by some unlucky chance, it would take
several expeditions to the Zoo, and probably one to Kew, before things
were as they were. If Zerlina, however, should, by the expedition of
the aunt and children to Kew, be enabled to do something she very much
wanted to do, and couldn't, because the nurse's father was ill, and the
nursery-maid anemic, the little misunderstanding will have disappeared
by the time the aunt returns from Kew, and Zerlina will say, after
carefully counting the children,--it is this mathematical tendency
in mothers that hurts an aunt,--"I do trust you implicitly with the
children, dear. You know that; it isn't every one I could trust; you are
so capable! I wish I were, but one can't be everything. Of course you
don't understand a mother's feelings."

I sometimes wonder why Zerlina always says this to me. I have never
pretended to be anything but an aunt.

But to return to my profession. As the children grow older the duties of
the aunt become more arduous. For the benefit of schoolboy nephews with
exeats, she must have an intimate acquaintance with the Hippodrome, any
exhibition going, every place of instruction, of a kind, or amusement.
She must be thoroughly up in matinees, and know what plays are
frightfully exciting, and she must have a nice taste in sweets. She need
not necessarily eat them; it is perhaps better if she does not. But she
must know where the very best are to be procured. She must never get
tired. She must love driving in hansoms and going on the top of 'buses.
She must know where the white ones go, and where the red ones don't,
although a mistake on her part is readily forgiven, if it prolongs the
drive without curtailing a performance of any kind. This requires great
experience. She must set aside, moreover, a goodly sum every year for
professional expenses.

The foregoing are a few of the qualifications which Zerlina thinks
essential in aunts. There are others, and the greatest of them is love.
Zerlina forgot to mention tha