ack to the others and
have them ask him why he had been sent for. He went out into the garden,
and down to the seat under the lindens by the river. The thought of his
specimens, his precious specimens, was too much for the poor fellow. He
threw himself on the ground and poured out his sorrows in sobs and
tears.

In the afternoon, when the others all ran out rejoicing in the sunshine,
he hid himself in a corner of the school-room, and wrote the following
letter:--

DEAR AUNTY:--You will cry when you read this, I am sure. It is all
done for, my entire collection; all killed with a dust-cloth,
squashed, smashed, driven out of windows, and into holes, and all
by a maid-servant. As I had no boxes for them, I naturally put my
specimens into the best places I could find for them. In the
writing-desk in my room were ever so many little divisions, just
the very thing to put different varieties into. When the maid came
to clear up the room, she didn't know anything about their value,
of course, and she thrust her hateful brush right in and destroyed
them all. She is a savage, an ignorant savage. I did as you told
me, dear aunty. Not one tiny little frog even have I carried in my
pockets, not even a beetle; and this is the result. I will not tell
you all the things I had found; I couldn't bear to describe them.
Two such beauties of beetles--bright red wings, the body lilac
blue, and glittering as any precious stone! Such a rare species!
And an oleander-sphinx! And my magnificent caterpillar of the
humming-bird moth!--you know, aunty, that one with yellow stripes
and blue eye-spots. All trodden to death on the floor.

I must stop; the longer I think of it, the worse I feel. I will
say one thing though. You may call a person "Aunty," but that
doesn't make her one. When we first came here, I used to say to
Fani, when he wanted anything, "Why don't you go and ask Aunt
Clarissa?" and he answered more than a dozen times, "That isn't
allowed here." So at last I understood, and as I didn't want to
lead him to do anything out of the way, I didn't say it any more.
But now you see the difference between a real aunt and a
make-believe one. There is nothing in the world that we can't ask
you. If you can't do it, you say so, and there's the end of it. But
that's no reason for not asking another time