or light, shines out with joyful
radiance, wherein I rejoice. To-morrow he will have the measles, and the
mumps, and the croup, and the whooping-cough, and scarlatina; and then
come the alphabet, and Latin grammar, and politics, and his own boys
getting into trouble: but to-day, when his happiness is in my hands, I
may secure it, and never can any one wrest from him the sunshine I may
pour into his happy little heart. Oh! the time comes so soon, and comes
so often, that Love can only look with bitter sorrow upon the sorrow
which it has no power to mitigate!

Language is unceremoniously resolved into its original elements by
Jamie. He is constitutionally opposed to inflection, which, as he must
be devoid of prejudice, may be considered indisputable proof of the
native superiority of the English to other languages. He is careful to
include in his sentences all the important words, but he has small
respect for particles, and the disposition of his words waits entirely
upon his moods. _My_ usually does duty for _I_. "Want the Uncle Frank
gave me hossey," with a finger pointing to the mantel-piece is just as
flexible to his use as "Want the hossey that Uncle Frank gave me."
"Where Baddy _can_ be?" he murmurs softly to himself, while peering
behind doors and sofas in playing hide-and-seek. Hens are cud-dah, a
flagrant example of Onomatopoeia. The cradle is a cay-go; corn-balls
are ball-corn; and snow-bird, bird-snow; and all his rosy nails are
toe-nails. He has been drilled into meet response to "how d' ye do?" but
demonstrates the mechanical character of his reply by responding to any
question that has the _you_ and _how_ sounds in it, as "What do you
think of that?" "How did you do it?" "How came you by this?" "Pit-_tee_
well."

But his performances are not all mechanical. He has a stock of poetry
and orations, of which he delivers himself at bedtime with a degree of
resignation,--that being the only hour in which he can be reduced to
sufficient quietude for recitation; nor is that because he loves quiet
more, but bed less. It is a very grievous misfortune, an unreasonable
and arbitrary requisition, that breaks in upon his busy life, interrupts
him in the midst of driving to mill on an inverted chair, hauling wood
in a ditto footstool, and other important matters, and sweeps him off to
darkness and silence. So, with night-gown on, and the odious bed
imminent, he puts off the evil day by compounding with the authorities
an