Suddenly I heard a noise unearthly in its shrillness:  it was Hugh calling his Aunt Woggles.  He threw himself into my arms, keeping one eye, I could not help noticing, on the parcels.  During the hug, which gave him plenty of time to make up his mind, he evidently decided which was for him; for he relaxed his hold and went to the table by the window, on which the parcels lay, whistling in as careless a manner as a boy bursting with excitement could do.  First of all he stood on one leg, then on the other, and looked knowingly at me out of the corner of his eye.  He was too honest to pretend that he thought the parcel was for some other boy, since there was no other.  When the excitement became more than he could bear, he sang in a sing-song voice, “I see it, I see it!”

“Open it, then,” I said, which he proceeded to do with great energy, if with little success.

“I b’lieve it’s a knife with things in it,” he said.

My heart sank.  “Oh, it’s much too big for a knife, Hugh,” I replied.

“I ’spect it is, all the same,” he said with a nod; “you’ve made it big on purpose; I positively know you have.”

At last it was opened, and I said, aunt-like, “Do you like it, Hugh?”

“Awfully, thanks.”  Then he added a little wistfully, “Tommy’s got a knife with things in it, a button’ook.”

Perhaps he saw I looked disappointed, for he added magnanimously, “I like trains next best, Aunt Woggles; only you see I didn’t exactly pray for a train, that’s why.  What’s Betty’s?”

“Betty must open it herself.”

“Don’t you suppose,” he said, “that she would like me to open it for her, because it is a hard thing opening parcels —­ and Betty says I may always open all her parcels when she is out.”

“Hugh!” I exclaimed.

He rushed to the door.  “Come on, Betty,” he shouted.  “Aunt Woggles wants you.”

If Betty’s entrance was less tempestuous than Hugh’s, her embrace was not less ecstatic.  She put her arms round my neck and took her legs off the ground, —­ a quite simple process, and known to most aunts, I expect.  The ultimate result would, no doubt, be strangulation.  No one knows, of course, but among aunts it is a very general belief.  Unlike Hugh, Betty kept her eyes religiously away from parcels, and she got very pink when I drew her attention to the very nobly one which was hers.  Hugh stood by, urging her to open it, and offering to help her; but this Betty would not allow, and she opened it, her lips trembling with excitement.

“Is it for my very own?” she whispered.

“Absolutely for your very own, Betty,” I answered.

“Oh!” said Betty.  “Hugh, it’s all for my very, very own; Aunt Woggles says so; but you may play with it when you are very good.”

This in Hugh’s eyes seemed so remote a contingency as to be scarcely worth consideration.

When the cooking-stove stood revealed in all its glory, Betty was silent for a moment; then she said in a voice choked with emotion, “I shall cook dinners for you, all for your very own self —­ nobody else.”