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.