st. 'But, Miss Betty,' she said, 'I
thought aunts were old people.'

'Oh, Nancy!' said Betty, with an air of wisdom; 'you have a very great
deal to learn, Nancy, dear. It is not the age that makes the aunt,
Nancy, it is the nephew or the niece. And as for being old, Angelica
and I aren't so very young. She was sixteen last winter and I am
thirteen, and people have done a great deal at thirteen, as you'll
learn when you read biography. And, even if we haven't been so very
old before, we have to begin now and grow up at once, for we are going
to live here and be independent ladies, with our cousin, Mr. Crayshaw,
coming down now and then from London to see us, and--and talk over
business, and advise us about our money matters, and we shall have
Godfrey, our nephew Godfrey, to take care of and educate. Angel says,'
she went on after a minute, while the faces of her listeners showed
great satisfaction at the arrangements, 'that we must put everything
else on one side and bring up our nephew as his father would have
wished, to be a proper English gentleman and a credit to his family.
She says we can fit ourselves to do any duty that we have got to do,
and our duty now is to be good aunts, and we must be _that_ with all
our might;' and here the good aunt broke off suddenly as her eye fell
for the first time on the baskets which her listeners were holding.

'Did you bring those for us?' she exclaimed. 'Oh, how kind of you!
Are those Polly's eggs, Nance? I guessed they were, and the mushrooms
are off the common, I know. Whereabouts did you get them, Pete? I
must go with you some day very soon, I'm longing----'

And then as if with a sudden recollection the eager little lady pulled
herself up, smoothed her crooked kerchief, and shook the rebellious
hair out of her eyes, and went on in her most sober tones: 'I don't
know, Peter, whether I shall be able to come mushrooming much now. Of
course my nephew will take up a good deal of my time, and I'm not sure
whether many mushrooms are quite a good thing for children. But eggs
will be very nice for his breakfast--a new-laid egg every day, I think,
not too hard-boiled. And there's just one more little thing; I hope
you won't mind, but I fancy if you could get into the way of calling us
Miss Angelica and Miss Elizabeth when our nephew is there it would be a
good thing, and make him look up to us more. You won't mind my saying
so, will you? And now I think I must go, beca