moment, he isn't sucking, he isn't sleeping--he is growing
with all his might. Under those interesting circumstances, what does he
want to do? To move his limbs freely in every direction. You let him
swing his arms to his heart's content--and you deny him freedom to kick
his legs. You clothe him in a dress three times as long as himself. He
tries to throw his legs up in the air as he throws his arms, and he can't
do it. There is his senseless long dress entangling itself in his toes,
and making an effort of what Nature intended to be a luxury. Can anything
be more absurd? What are mothers about? Why don't they think for
themselves? Take my advice--short petticoats, Mrs. Finch. Liberty,
glorious liberty, for my young friend's legs! Room, heaps of room, for
that infant martyr's toes!"

Mrs. Finch listened helplessly--lifted the baby's long petticoats, and
looked at them--stared piteously at Nugent Dubourg--opened her lips to
speak--and, thinking better of it, turned her watery eyes on her husband,
appealing to _him_ to take the matter up. Mr. Finch made another attempt
to assert his dignity--a ponderously satirical attempt, this time.

"In offering your advice to my wife, Mr. Nugent," said the rector, "you
must permit me to remark that it would have had more practical force if
it had been the advice of a married man. I beg to remind you----"

"You beg to remind me that it is the advice of a bachelor? Oh, come! that
really won't do at this time of day. Doctor Johnson settled that argument
at once and for ever, a century since. 'Sir!' (he said to somebody of
your way of thinking) 'you may scold your carpenter, when he has made a
bad table, though you can't make a table yourself.' I say to you--'Mr.
Finch, you may point out a defect in a baby's petticoats, though you
haven't got a baby yourself!' Doesn't that satisfy you? All right! Take
another illustration. Look at your room here. I can see in the twinkling
of an eye, that it's badly lit. You have only got one window--you ought
to have two. Is it necessary to be a practical builder to discover that?
Absurd! Are you satisfied now? No! Take another illustration. What's this
printed paper, here, on the chimney-piece? Assessed Taxes. Ha! Assessed
Taxes will do. You're not in the House of Commons; you're not Chancellor
of the Exchequer--but haven't you an opinion of your own about taxation,
in spite of that? Must you and I be in Parliament before we can presume
to see that th