Genre:

Short Fiction

Subjects:

Amusement, Machinery, Commerce, Natural History, Education

    The narrator, 'Aunt Sophie', has some young relations staying with her from the country for Twelfth-night. She takes them through the streets 'to show them the variety of ingenious devices which the shop windows of the metropolis exhibited on that day' (18). At a party in the evening they have 'simple entertainment', which includes playing with a model of Noah's ark. The 'multitudinous family' are then returned to the ark, 'the beetle and the lady-bird, the elephant and the camel; And "this is a dove aunt Sophie?" and "this is a raven?" [are] answered with as much patience as it [is] possible to command at the hundredth repetition of similar questions' (19–20).