.
Then Tony, be sure, would laugh until he rolled from side to side. Mummy
never responded to his wishes now, but Daddy had pleaded for the
Jack-in-the-box to be spared, and sometimes when quite alone with Tony,
would play the monkey-game in his inferior paternal style, pleased with
such modified appreciation as the young critic might bestow upon him.

"I'm sorry Baby's so troublesome," apologized the distressed Milly, for
the third time lifting Tony up and replacing him in a sitting posture,
with his picture-book. "I'm trying to teach him to sit quiet, but I'm
afraid he's been played with a great deal more than he should have
been."

"To tell the truth, I thought so the last time I was here," replied Aunt
Beatrice. "But he's still young enough to be properly trained. It's such
waste of a reasonable person's time to spend it making idiotic noises at
a small baby. And it's a thousand times better for the child's brain and
nerves for it to be left entirely to itself."

Tony said nothing, but his face began to work in a threatening manner.

"I perfectly agree with you, Aunt Beatrice," responded Milly, eagerly.

Lady Thomson continued:

"Children should be spoken to as little as possible until they are from
two to two and a half years old; then they should be taught to speak
correctly."

Milly chimed in: "Yes, that's always been my own view. I do feel it so
important that their very first impressions should be the right ones,
that the first pictures they see should be good, that they should never
be sung to out of tune and in general--"

Apparently this programme for babies did not commend itself to Tony;
certainly the first item, enjoining silent development, did not. His
face had by this time worked the right number of minutes to produce a
roar, and it came. Milly picked him up, but the wounds of his spirit
were not to be immediately healed, and the roar continued. Finally he
had to be handed over to the parlor-maid, and so came to great happiness
in the kitchen, where there were no rules against infantile
conversation. Milly was flushed and disturbed.

"Baby has not been properly brought up," she said. "He's been allowed
his own way too much."

"Since you say so, Milly, I must confess I noticed in the spring that
you seemed to be bringing the child up in an easy-going, old-fashioned
way I should hardly have expected of you. I hope you will begin now to
study the theory of education. A mother should take her v