and die."

She appeared to be solving a problem.

"All grown-up people seem to know everything," she summarized.

There are times when I doubt if children are as simple as they look.
If it be sheer stupidity that prompts them to make remarks of this
character, one should pity them, and seek to improve them. But if it be
not stupidity? well then, one should still seek to improve them, but by
a different method.

The other morning I overheard the nurse talking to this particular
specimen. The woman is a most worthy creature, and she was imparting
to the child some really sound advice. She was in the middle of an
unexceptional exhortation concerning the virtue of silence, when
Dorothea interrupted her with--

"Oh, do be quiet, Nurse. I never get a moment's peace from your
chatter."

Such an interruption discourages a woman who is trying to do her duty.

Last Tuesday evening she was unhappy. Myself, I think that rhubarb
should never be eaten before April, and then never with lemonade. Her
mother read her a homily upon the subject of pain. It was impressed upon
her that we must be patient, that we must put up with the trouble that
God sends us. Dorothea would descend to details, as children will.

"Must we put up with the cod-liver oil that God sends us?"

"Yes, decidedly."

"And with the nurses that God sends us?"

"Certainly; and be thankful that you've got them, some little girls
haven't any nurse. And don't talk so much."

On Friday I found the mother in tears.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

"Oh, nothing," was the answer; "only Baby. She's such a strange child. I
can't make her out at all."

"What has she been up to now?"

"Oh, she will argue, you know."

She has that failing. I don't know where she gets it from, but she's got
it.

"Well?"

"Well, she made me cross; and, to punish her, I told her she shouldn't
take her doll's perambulator out with her."

"Yes?"

"Well, she didn't say anything then, but so soon as I was outside the
door, I heard her talking to herself--you know her way?"

"Yes?"

"She said--"

"Yes, she said?"

"She said, 'I must be patient. I must put up with the mother God has
sent me.'"

She lunches down-stairs on Sundays. We have her with us once a week to
give her the opportunity of studying manners and behaviour. Milson had
dropped in, and we were discussing politics. I was interested, and,
pushing my plate aside, leant forward with my elbows on the table.
Doro