“Oh yes,” said my aunt tartly, “he can ask questions enough! so can all boys.”
“But not sensible questions, my dear,” said Uncle Dick smiling; but my aunt kept looking angrily at me as I sat hearing all that was going on.
“Sensible questions, indeed!” she said; “and pray, of what use is it going to be to him that he knows how to stick a pin through a butterfly and leave the poor thing to wriggle to death.”
“Naturalists do not stick pins through butterflies and leave them to wriggle to death,” said Uncle Dick, looking at me and smiling. “Suppose they did, Nat, what would happen?”
“It would be very cruel, uncle, and would spoil the specimen,” I said promptly.
“To be sure it would, Nat.”
“It’s all waste of time, Richard, and the boy shall go back to school.”
“I have not done with Nat yet, Sophy, and I shall be obliged by your ceasing to talk nonsense. It worries me.”
This was said in so quiet and decided a way, and in the voice of one so accustomed to command, that my aunt said:
“Well, Richard, I suppose it must be as you wish.”