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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 asked for a story, and we’re going into the library.” As Dot said this, she jerked her head expressively in the direction of the sofa, where Aunt Penelope was just casting on stitches preparatory to beginning a pair of her famous ribbed socks for Papa, whilst she gave to Mamma’s conversation that sympathy which (like her knitting-needles) was always at the service of her large circle of friends. Dot anxiously watched the bow on the top of her cap as it danced and nodded with the force of Mamma’s observations. At last it gave a little chorus of jerks, as one should say, “Certainly, undoubtedly.” And then the story came to an end, and Dot, who had been slowly creeping nearer, fairly took Aunt Penelope by the hand, and carried her off, knitting and all, to the library.

“Now, please,” said Dot, when she had struggled into a chair that was too tall for her.

“Stop a minute!” cried Sam, who was perched in the opposite one, “the horse-hair tickles my legs.”

“Put your pocket-handkerchief under them, as I do,” said Dot. “Now, Aunt Penelope.”

“No, wait,” groaned Sam; “it isn’t big enough; it only covers one leg.”

Dot slid down again, and ran to Sam.

“Take my handkerchief for the other.”

“But what will you do?” said Sam.

“Oh, I don’t care,” said Dot, scrambling back into her place. “Now, Aunty, please.”

And Aunt Penelope began.

“THE LAND OF LOST TOYS.

“I suppose people who have children transfer their childish follies and fancies to them, and become properly sedate and grown-up. Perhaps it is because I am an old maid, and have none, that some of my nursery whims stick to me, and I find myself liking things, and wanting things, quite out of keeping with my cap and time of life. For instance. Anything in the shape of a toy-shop (from a London bazaar to a village window, with Dutch dolls, leather balls, and wooden battledores) quite unnerves me, so to speak. When I see one of those boxes containing a jar, a churn, a kettle, a pan, a coffee-pot, a cauldron on three legs, and sundry dishes, all of the smoothest wood, and with the immemorial red flower on one side of each vessel, I fairly long for an excuse for playing with them, and for trying (positively for the last time) if the lids do come off, and whether the kettle will (literally, as well as metaphorically) hold water. Then if, by good or ill luck, there is a child flattening its little nose against the window with longing eyes, my purse is soon empty; and as it toddles off with a square parcel under one arm, and a lovely being in black ringlets and white tissue paper in the other, I wish that I were worthy of being asked to join the ensuing play. Don’t suppose there is any generosity in this. I have only done what we are all glad to do. I have found an excuse for indulging a pet weakness. As I said, it is not merely the new and expensive toys that attract me; I think my weakest corner is where the penny boxes lie, the wooden tea-things (with the above-named flower in miniature), the soldiers on their lazy tongs, the nine-pins, and the tiny farm.