n
comparison. At a month old it is trotting about, and growing quite
independent; more sensible altogether than a child aged a year.

I am afraid I shock people often by my opinions, but they are really
genuine. I am always more interested in the canine race than in the
blossoms of humanity. Very likely it is the behavior of each that
makes me so. Children never take to me, nor come near me if they can
help it. I do not understand them, or know what to talk to them about.
On the other hand, dogs will come to me at once, and, what is more,
keep to me. I have never been growled at in my life, and I have come
across a good many dogs, too.

"You were a baby yourself once!" How often has this been said to me
when I have aired the above opinions. It is put before me as an
unanswerable argument, a sort of annihilating finale to the
conversation. Yet I really don't see what it has to do with the
matter. I suppose I was a baby once. At least they say so. Which
protestation, by the way, rather leaves it open to doubt, for "on
dits" like weather forecasts are nice reliable institutions if you do
but follow the opposite of what they tell you. Still, as there is more
than one witness to the effect, I will give in and admit it; I was a
baby.

But the admission makes me no fonder of the species. If anything it
makes me admire them the less; for if I at all resembled the
photographs that were taken of me--"before my eyes were open," I was
going to say; at any rate before I could stand--I wonder a stone was
not put round my neck, and they did not drown me in the first bucket
of water they came across.

It is said that ugly babies grow up the best looking, and _vice
versa_. This is a pleasant and comforting thought for the ugly baby.
It can bear a little depreciation now, because it can look forward to
the time when it will far outdo its successful rival. And the pretty
baby's glory is soon over. It becomes only a memory which rather
irritates than soothes. For after all, retrospection is not so
pleasant as anticipation.

The above remark was said before a child about four years old, the
other day. She must have been listening intently, and having taken in
the sense she inwardly digested it; for the next time she quarrelled
with her sister, she broke in spitefully, "You must have been the
beautifullest baby that ever was born."

Children should never be seen until they are over two. Until then they
are neither pretty nor enterta