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THE NEW BABY.
I will not attempt to describe the astonishment of the members of our
household, each in succession, as the news of the child spread. Charlie was
heard shouting across the stable-yard to his brother:
"Harry, Harry! Mamma has got a new baby. Isn't it jolly?"
"Where did she get it?" cried Harry in return.
"In the parsley-bed, I suppose," answered Charlie, and was nearer right
than usual, for the information on which his conclusion was founded had no
doubt been imparted as belonging to the history of the human race.
But my reader can easily imagine the utter bewilderment of those of the
family whose knowledge of human affairs would not allow of their curiosity
being so easily satisfied as that of the boys. In them was exemplified that
confusion of the intellectual being which is produced by the witness of
incontestable truth to a thing incredible--in which case the probability
always is, that the incredibility results from something in the mind of the
hearer falsely associated with and disturbing the true perception of the
thing to which witness is borne.
Nor was the astonishment confined to the family, for it spread over the
parish that Mrs. Walton had got another baby. And so, indeed, she had. And
seldom has baby met with a more hearty welcome than this baby met with from
everyone of our family. They hugged it first, and then asked questions. And
that, I say, is the right way of receiving every good gift of God. Ask what
questions you will, but when you see that the gift is a good one, make
sure that you take it. There is plenty of time for you to ask questions
afterwards. Then the better you love the gift, the more ready you will be
to ask, and the more fearless in asking.
The truth, however, soon became known. And then, strange to relate, we
began to receive visits of condolence. O, that poor baby! how it was
frowned upon, and how it had heads shaken over it, just because it was not
Ethelwyn's baby! It could not help that, poor darling!
"Of course, you'll give information to the police," said, I am sorry to
say, one of my brethren in the neighbourhood, who had the misfortune to be
a magistrate as well.
"Why?" I asked.
"Why! That they may discover the parents, to be sure."
"Wouldn't it be as hard a matter to prove the parentage, as it would be
easy to suspect it?" I asked. "And just think what it would be to give the
baby to a woman who not only did not want her, but who was not her mother.
But if her own mother came to claim her now, I don't say I would refuse
her, but I should think twice about giving her up after she had once
abandoned her for a whole night in the open air. In fact I don't want the
parents."
"But you don't want the child."
"How do you know that?" I returned--rather rudely, I am afraid, for I am
easily annoyed at anything that seems to me heartless--about children
especially.
"O! of course, if you want to have an orphan asylum of your own, no one has
a right to interfere. But you ought to consider other people."
"That is just what I thought I was doing," I answered; but he went on
without heeding my reply--
"We shall all be having babies left at our doors, and some of us are not so
fond of them as you are. Remember, you are your brother's keeper."
"And my sister's too," I answered. "And if the question lies between
keeping a big, burly brother like you, and a tiny, wee sister like that, I
venture to choose for myself."
"She ought to go to the workhouse," said the magistrate--a friendly,
good-natured man enough in ordinary--and rising, he took his hat and
departed.
This man had no children. So he was--or was not, so much to blame. Which?
I say the latter.
Some of Ethelwyn's friends were no less positive about her duty in the
affair. I happened to go into the drawing-room during the visit of one of
them--Miss Bowdler.
"But, my dear Mrs. Walton," she was saying, "you'll be having all the
tramps in England leaving their babies at your door."
"The better for the babies," interposed I, laughing.
"But you don't think of your wife, Mr. Walton."
"Don't I? I thought I did," I returned dryly.
"Depend upon it, you'll repent it."
"I hope I shall never repent of anything but what is bad."
"Ah! but, really! it's not a thing to be made game of."
"Certainly not. The baby shall be treated with all due respect in this
house."
"What a provoking man you are! You know what I mean well enough."
"As well as I choose to know--certainly," I answered.
This lady was one of my oldest parishioners, and took liberties for which
she had no other justification, except indeed an unhesitating belief in the
superior rectitude of whatever came into her own head can be counted
as one. When she was gone, my wife turned to me with a half-comic,
half-anxious look, and said:
"But it would be rather alarming, Harry, if this were to get abroad, and
we couldn't go out at the door in the morning without being in danger of
stepping on a baby on the door-step."
"You might as well have said, when you were going to be married, 'If God
should send me twenty children, whatever should I do?' He who sent us this
one can surely prevent any more from coming than he wants to come. All that
we have to think of is to do right--not the consequences of doing right.
But leaving all that aside, you must not suppose that wandering mothers
have not even the attachment of animals to their offspring. There are not
so many that are willing to part with babies as all that would come to. If
you believe that God sent this one, that is enough for the present. If he
should send another, we should know by that that we had to take it in."
My wife said the baby was a beauty. I could see that she was a plump,
well-to-do baby; and being by nature no particular lover of babies as
babies--that is, feeling none of the inclination of mothers and nurses
and elder sisters to eat them, or rather, perhaps, loving more for what I
believed than what I saw--that was all I could pretend to discover. But
even the aforementioned elderly parishioner was compelled to allow before
three months were over that little Theodora--for we turned the name of
my youngest daughter upside down for her--"was a proper child." To none,
however, did she seem to bring so much delight as to our dear Constance.
Oftener than not, when I went into her room, I found the sleepy, useless
little thing lying beside her on the bed, and her staring at it with such
loving eyes! How it began, I do not know, but it came at last to be called
Connie's Dora, or Miss Connie's baby, all over the house, and nothing
pleased Connie better. Not till she saw this did her old nurse take quite
kindly to the infant; for she regarded her as an interloper, who had no
right to the tenderness which was lavished upon her. But she had no sooner
given in than the baby began to grow dear to her as well as to the rest. In
fact, the house was ere long full of nurses. The staff included everyone
but myself, who only occasionally, at the entreaty of some one or other of
the younger ones, took her in my arms.
But before she was three months old, anxious thoughts began to intrude, all
centering round the question in what manner the child was to be brought up.
Certainly there was time enough to think of this, as Ethelwyn constantly
reminded me; but what made me anxious was that I could not discover the
principle that ought to guide me. Now no one can tell how soon a principle
in such a case will begin, even unconsciously, to operate; and the danger
was that the moment when it ought to begin to operate would be long past
before the principle was discovered, except I did what I could now to find
it out. I had again and again to remind myself that there was no cause for
anxiety; for that I might certainly claim the enlightenment which all who
want to do right are sure to receive; but still I continued uneasy just
from feeling a vacancy where a principle ought to have been.
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