until you
had joined your voice with that of the great congregation, and
acknowledged yourself to be a miserable sinner."

Mrs. Burton winced, but nevertheless retired, and soon appeared dressed
for church, kissed her husband and her nephews, gave many last
instructions, and departed. Budge followed her with his eye until she
had stepped from the piazza, and then remarked, with a sigh of relief:

"_Now_ I guess we'll have what papa calls a good, old-fashioned
time--we've got rid of _her_."

"Budge!" exclaimed Mr. Burton, sternly, and springing to his feet, "do
you know who you are talking about? Don't you know that your Aunt Alice
is my wife, and that she has saved you from many a scolding, done you
many a favor, and been your best friend?"

"Oh, yes," said Budge, with at least a dozen inflections on each word,
"but ev'ry day friends an' Sunday friends are kind o' different; don't
you think so? _She_ can't make whistles, or catch bull-frogs, or carry
both of us up the mountain on her shoulders, or sing 'Roll, Jordan.'"

"And do you expect _me_ to do all these things to-day?" asked Mr.
Burton.

"N--n--no," said Budge, "unless you should get well an' feel just like
it; but we'd like to be with somebody who _could_ do 'em if he wanted
to. We like ladies that's _all_ ladies, but then we like men that's all
men, too. Aunt Alice is a good deal like an angel, I think, and you--you
_ain't_. An' we don't want to be with angels all the time until we're
angels ourselves."

Mr. Burton turned over suddenly and contemplated the back of the lounge
at this honest avowal of one of humanity's prominent weaknesses, while
Budge continued:

"We don't want _you_ to get to be an angel, so what I want to know is,
how to make you well. Don't you think if I borrowed papa's horse and
carriage an' took you ridin' you'd feel better? I know he'd lend 'em to
me if I told him you were goin' to drive."

"And if you said you were going with me to take care of me?" suggested
Mr. Burton.

"Y--e--es," said Budge, as hesitatingly as if such an idea had never
occurred to him. "An' don't you think that up to the top of the
Hawksnest Rock an' out to Passaic Falls would be the nicest places for a
sick man to go? When you got tired of ridin' you could stop the carriage
an' cut us a cane, or make us whistles, or find us pfingster apples (the
seed-balls of the wild azalea), or even send us in swimming in a brook
somewhere if you got tired of us."