nd your health is good? But really I need not ask it. _Mon
Dieu_, what a pretty little fellow he is! Look at him, Robert; how
pretty he is! A real little doll! Isn't he funny now, isn't he funny! He
is quite amusing."

Her husband, observing her gayety, drew near and began to admire the
child by way of following her example. "Ah yes, he is really a pretty
baby. But I have seen so many frightful ones--thin, puny, bluish little
things, looking like little plucked chickens. When they are white and
plump they are quite nice."

Mathieu began to laugh, and twitted the Angelins on having no child
of their own. But on this point they held very decided opinions. They
wished to enjoy life, unburdened by offspring, while they were young. As
for what might happen in five or six years' time, that, of course, was
another matter. Nevertheless, Madame Angelin could not help being struck
by the delightful picture which Marianne, so fresh and gay, presented
with her plump little babe at her breast in that white bed amid the
bright sunshine.

At last she remarked: "There's one thing. I certainly could not feed a
child. I should have to engage a nurse for any baby of mine."

"Of course!" her husband replied. "I would never allow you to feed it.
It would be idiotic."

These words had scarcely passed his lips when he regretted them and
apologized to Marianne, explaining that no mother possessed of means was
nowadays willing to face the trouble and worry of nursing.

"Oh! for my part," Marianne responded, with her quiet smile, "if I had a
hundred thousand francs a year I should nurse all my children, even were
there a dozen of them. To begin with, it is so healthful, you know, both
for mother and child: and if I didn't do my duty to the little one
I should look on myself as a criminal, as a mother who grudged her
offspring health and life."

Lowering her beautiful soft eyes towards her boy, she watched him with a
look of infinite love, while he continued nursing gluttonously. And in a
dreamy voice she continued: "To give a child of mine to another--oh no,
never! I should feel too jealous. I want my children to be entirely
my own. And it isn't merely a question of a child's physical health. I
speak of his whole being, of the intelligence and heart that will come
to him, and which he ought to derive from me alone. If I should find
him foolish or malicious later on, I should think that his nurse had
poisoned him. Dear little fellow! when