ties
are simply things to be climbed over. She looks at the goal and makes
straight for it. Her only care is to reach it. Sometimes at afternoon
tea, when she is sitting on someone's lap, facing an empty,
uninteresting plate, she sees another plate three chairs distant, and
upon that plate there is a biscuit or some other sweet attraction. Upon
such occasions Lulla all but plunges into space between the chairs, in
her singleness of purpose. Having reached the lap nearest that plate,
she turns and smiles at her late entertainer just to make sure she is
not offended. But even if she knew she would be, Lulla would not
hesitate. Curly head foremost, eyes on the goal: that is Lulla.

We have a custom at Dohnavur which perplexes the sober-minded. We call
most of our possessions by names other than their own. These names are
entirely private. We have to keep to this rule of privacy, otherwise we
get shocks. "O Lord, look upon our beloved Puppy, and make her tooth
come through; and bless Alice (in Wonderland), whose inside has gone
wrong," was the petition offered in all seriousness, which finally moved
us to prudence. We do not feel responsible for these names, for they
come of themselves, and we see them when they come. That is all we have
to do with them. Besides the Beetle and the Sea-anemone we have a dear
Cockatoo, who screws her nose and her whole face up into a delightful
pucker when she either laughs or cries, and then suddenly unscrews it in
the middle of either emotion and looks entirely demure. This is the
little Vimala, who, under God, owes her life to her Piria Sittie's
splendid nursing. This baby has always got a private little secret of
joy hidden away somewhere inside. We surprise her sometimes, sitting
alone on the floor talking to herself about it; and then she tells us
bits of it--as much as she thinks we can understand. But most of it is
still hidden away, her own private little secret. And there is an Owlet,
a Coney, a Froglet, and a Cheshire Cat, a Teddy-bear, a Spider, a
Ratlet, and a Rosebud. We are aware that this list is rather mixed; but
to be too critical would end in being nothing, so we are a Menagerie.

The Rosebud is like her name, small and sweet. When she wants to kiss
her friends, which is whenever she sees them, her mouth is like the pink
point of a moss-rose bud just coming through the moss. George Macdonald,
perfect interpreter of babies, must have had our Preethie's double in
his mind wh