“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Burton, musing.  “I suppose the papa worked hard for money to buy good food and comfortable resting-places for his wife and baby; and I suppose the mamma walked about the fields, and picked pretty flowers for her baby to play with; and I suppose the baby cooed when His mamma gave them to Him, and laughed and danced and played, and then got tired, and came and hid His little face in His mamma’s lap, and was taken into her arms and held ever so tight, and fell asleep, and that His mother looked into His face as if she would look through it, while she tried to find out what her baby would be and do when He grew up, and whether He would be taken away from her, while it seemed as if she couldn’t live at all without having Him very closely pressed to her breast and—­”

Mrs. Burton’s voice grew a little shaky, and, finally, failed her entirely.  Budge came in front of her, scrutinized her intently, but with great sympathy, also, and, finally, leaned his elbows on her knees, dropped his face into his own hands, looked up into her face, and remarked: 

“Why, Aunt Alice, she was just like my mamma, wasn’t she?  An’ I think you are just like both of ’em!”

Mrs. Burton took Budge hastily into her arms, covered his face with kisses, and totally destroyed another chance of explaining the difference between the earthly and the heavenly to her pupils, while Toddie eyed the couple with evident disfavor, and remarked: 

“I fink ‘twould be nicer if you’d see if dinner was bein’ got ready, instead of stoppin’ tellin’ stories an’ huggin’ Budge.  My tummuk’s all gotted little again.”

Mrs. Burton came back to the world of to-day from that of history, though not without a sigh, while the dog Jerry, who had divined the peaceful nature of the occasion so far as to feel justified in reclining beneath his mistress’s chair, now contracted himself into the smallest possible space, slunk out of the doorway, and took a lively quickstep in the direction of the shrubbery.  Toddie had seen him, however, and told the news to Budge, and both boys were soon in pursuit; noticing which the dog Jerry speedily betook himself to that distant retirement which the dog who has experience in small boys knows so well how to discover and maintain.

As the morning wore on, the boys grew restless, fought, drummed on the piano, snarled when that instrument was closed, meddled with everything that was within reach, and finally grew so troublesome that their aunt soon felt that to lose was cheaper than to save, so she left the house to the children, and sought the side of the lounge upon which her afflicted husband reclined.  The divining sense of childhood soon found her out, however, and Budge remarked: 

“Aunt Alice, if you’re going to church, seems to me it’s time you was getting ready.”

“I can’t go to church, Budge,” sighed Mrs. Burton.  “If I do, you boys will only turn the whole house upside down, and drive your poor uncle nearly crazy.”