f course
I sacrificed my own feelings and told mamma that I would do just what
she wanted. And mamma cried and kissed me, and said that I was an angel:
wasn't it sweet of her? To be sure, though, she was having her own way,
and I wasn't; and I think that I was an angel myself, for I did want
to go to Russia dreadfully. After all, as things turned out, we might
almost as well have gone; for poor dear mamma, you know, died that
winter anyway. But I'm glad I did what I could to please her, and that
she called me an angel for doing it. Don't you think that I was one? And
don't you feel, sir, that it is something of an honor to be an angel's
uncle?

[Illustration: Suppose I kiss you right on your dear little bald spot
030]

"Now suppose I kiss you right on your dear little bald spot, and that
we make up our minds not to go to that horrid sulphur place at all.
Everybody says that it is old-fashioned and stupid; and that is not
the kind of an American watering-place that I want to see, you know.
It would have been all very well if we'd gone there while I was in
mourning, and had to be proper and quiet and retired, and all that; but
I'm not in mourning any longer, Uncle Hutchinson--and you haven't said
yet how you like this breakfast gown. Do you have to be told that white
lace over pale-blue silk is very becoming to your angel niece, Uncle
Hutchinson? And now you shall have your kiss, and then the matter will
be settled." With which words Miss Lee--a somewhat bewildering but
unquestionably delightful effect in blond and blue--fluttered up to her
elderly relative, embraced him with a graceful energy, and bestowed upon
his bald spot the promised kiss.

"But--but indeed, my dear," responded Mr. Port, when he had emerged from
Miss Lee's enfolding arms, "you know that going to the White Sulphur is
not a mere matter of pleasure with me; it is one of hygienic
necessity. You forget, Dorothy"--Mr. Port spoke with a most earnest
seriousness--"you forget my liver."

"Now, Uncle Hutchinson, what is the use of talking about your liver
that way? Haven't you told me a great many times already that it is an
hereditary liver, and that nothing you can do to it ever will make it go
right? And if it is bound to go wrong anyway, why can't you just try to
forget all about it and have as pleasant a time as possible? That's
the doctrine that I always preached to poor dear mamma--she had an
hereditary liver too, you know--and it's a very good one