« HER TWO SUPERIORITIES 75 



Semaphore, however, has two superiorities 

 which can hardly age into defects. She is extra- 

 ordinarily sharp and Hvely; for do we not pet 

 her and play with her and talk to her every 

 moment her eyes are open, and sometimes when 

 they are not? And — second superiority — she 

 always wakes up smiling. If she is left smiling 

 too long, then certainly she smiles no longer; but 

 she has awakened smiling, anyhow. Should I be 

 first down and take upstairs the morning cup o' 

 tay, it is Semaphore receives me, smiling up from 

 betwixt her parents, blithely awake some seconds 

 before her mother has finished yawning and 

 digging the Ol' Man In the ribs. Be the window- 

 blind up or down, she catches one's eye before 

 anything else in the room — before her father's 

 weathered red face, or her mother's hair stream- 

 ing across the pillow, or the bag of family bis- 

 cuits on the bedside table. There Is something 

 peculiarly proper and beautiful In the sight of 

 a little child snuggled in bed between Its father 

 and mother, the fruit of their union still hanging, 

 as It were, with Its bloom upon It, to the parent 

 tree, and not unaffected for good, perhaps. In 

 after-life by the longer proximity. As for the 

 risk of over-laying, shall not those who gave 



