GOOD AUNT GALLADIA
gallant general, Sir Francis Melville Glowmutton, who distinguished himself so greatly in the defence of his country.
'It was my good fortune to spend my earliest days in this good creature's company, she, noble soul that she was, having undertaken to look after me when my poor father and mother disappeared in a sand-storm many years before.
'The greater part of her life this good woman had devoted to brightening the declining years of her well-loved father, whose arduous life, poor man, had left him in his old age, truth to tell, rather a tiresome, and sometimes a difficult, subject to get on with. However, thanks to her devotion and patience, he led a tolerably happy life. In the course of time the old warrior died and left the sorrowing lady well provided for,—that is, over and beyond necessaries, with sufficient money to keep up appearances, and even enough for her simple pleasures and hobbies.
'For some months my good aunt could not fill the blank in her life left by the loss of her father. So much kindness, however, could not be kept back for long, and was bound in the course of time to find its object. Always with a love for every feathered creature, she at last set about gathering around her as complete a collection of them as she could obtain. Soon she had in her aviaries the most marvellous assembly of birds ever brought together even at the Zoo. There were specimens of the Paraguay gull, Borneo 68
