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birth with a pair of lungs that needed no Demosthenean pebbles to bring them into play. Two-thirds of the time his face was in lines as thick as the rivers on a well-drawn map, and his roaring brought kind inquiries from the neighbours "if any thing was the matter with the baby?" His father flattered himself that he was destined to make a noise in the world, and descanted long and loud (for we were obliged to speak at "the top of our voices") on the kindness of Providence in permitting infants to scream, since it was necessary to the healthy action of the lungs; he added, moreover, that all sensible children were cross, and that his mother had often said he was the most fretful Ichild in the world.

Polly, now thirteen years of age, succeeded the regular nurse in assisting me to attend my little boy, and if ever any one, with the kindest intentions, had a knack at making a child scream, it was she, notwithstanding my woman in the kitchen would occasionally put her head into the parlour door and call out, "Polly, Polly, why

don't you shue the child?" but alas! Polly's sole ability lay in trotting and walking, walking and trotting, with all the energy of human muscles; her last resource, and it was often effectual, was to sit on a particularly hard chair, and rock backward and forward on an uncarpeted floor. At each jolt Master Frederick's voice grew fainter and fainter, until at length, overpowered by superior physical strength, he dropped asleep, and looked as if no storm had ever hung over his placid brow.

How beautiful is the sleep of infancy, with its breathing like the uplifting of lily leaves on a summer wave! It would be sculpture-like, did not the motion of the lips betray a sweet remembrance of its natural wants,

"As the shifting visions sweep,

Amid its innocent rest."

Edward often stole from his office at the hour of our infant's slumber, and we knelt together by his cradle, our thoughts leaping from baby

* Probably meaning husk.

hood to manhood, living long, long years in that lingering gaze. He always blessed us by awaking with a smile. An unutterable sweetness played over his lips, and his hands were outstretched in gentle joy.

"His hair is growing darker. He will look like you, Clarissa."

"No, Edward, his cradle shades it. See now, as I turn it to the light, your own sunny brown, and Polly thinks his eyes are blue."

To this day the point is not settled. Frederick, who is now a successor in his father's office, has dark eyes when shaded by fatigue or sorrow, but in health and joy they light up with his father's hue.

Notwithstanding Mr. Packard's arguments about expanding the chest, and though he was as brave as a lion, and, in the old uniform of "The Ancient and Honourable Artillery," white broadcloth, faced with red, with a gold-laced chapeau bras, he looked as though

"his eye

Could create soldiers, and make women fight,"

G

yet was he a mere coward when Frederick opened his infantile battery of screams; and from this weakness arose the uncomfortable habit of walking with him at night. Even after my husband became Judge Packard, you might have seen his honour at the dead of night, with a half naked baby in his arms, whose whims increased in proportion to their indulgence. For myself, I scarcely knew whether to laugh or weep one night, when, as peeping from my comfortable pillow, I saw the judge dividing the remains of a cold turkey between little Martha, my eldest daughter, and her brother. Fred was then four years old.

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When Frederick ceased to be fretful, he became mischievous. By a well-timed slap, I cured him of some daydawn experiments on me; but his favourite plaything at that hour, so delightful for repose after a disturbed night, was his father's nose; and when with a groan or remonstrance he turned away, the boy's scream became so tremendous that the nasal toy was restored.

Nothing is more helpless than a kind-hearted man with a passionate child. Its very weakness is its strength, and though one finger of his masculine hand could terminate its existence, yet the infant's feeblest touch can conquer both body and mind.

It is not my intention to theorize on the subject of managing children; I am simply practical. When Frederick was a week old, his father brought home the treatises of Hamilton, West, Edgeworth, &c. on education. I had previously seen him poring over Rousseau and Xenophon. He read them faithfully, and discussed them eloquently, yet not one of these writers could induce him to deny Fred his nose; therefore, finding them insufficient to establish his authority, and not having much taste for reading, I did not look into these celebrated works, and yet my boy obeyed my words, and even my looks. I found great virtue in a rational, well managed rod. Scolding is every way injurious. It is pouring water into a sieve;

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