Two Maiden Aunts

'No, Peter, one mayn't say anything of the kind,' said Miss Betty, pulling herself up and looking as dignified as she possibly could. 'Of course, he's an orphan, poor dear little boy! but he can't be alone in the world at all when he's got two aunts, and his aunt Angelica and I will take good care he never feels like an orphan, the darling.'

Nancy's eyes opened their very widest. 'But, Miss Betty,' she said, 'I thought aunts were old people.'

'Oh, Nancy!' said Betty, with an air of wisdom; 'you have a very great deal to learn, Nancy, dear. It is not the age that makes the aunt, Nancy, it is the nephew or the niece. And as for being old, Angelica and I aren't so very young. She was sixteen last winter and I am thirteen, and people have done a great deal at thirteen, as you'll learn when you read biography. And, even if we haven't been so very old before, we have to begin now and grow up at