This character study of a child may br ng to the minds of cur readers some 
anecdotes or sayings of their own children, as suggested by the writer at the end 
of his article. If so, we shall be glad to receive them, and to pay for any that 
we may decide to use. 
Author of“ ]\oltiug*of a Mossless Stone;' “Chestnut j 
Hot an 4 Cold” etc. 
Illustrated by Miss L. Hocknell. 
T 
’HOSE of us 
who have kept 
babies cannot fail 
to have been struck 
with their early air 
of mystery and the 
portentousness of 
their wisdom. It is 
impossible not to 
believe that at first 
the baby remem- 
bers a good deal of 
a former existence, 
and resents its pre- 
sent ridiculous 
body. 
1 can bring for- 
ward as partial 
proof of this the 
first remembered 
sounds that Mar- 
jorie made when a day or two old, when she 
lay singing “ Lai, lal, lal ! ” to herself ; such 
a plaintive note, and yet with the dawn of 
contentment at her changed lot in her voice, 
as though to say, “ Well, well, what a come 
down ! I’ve got to begin all over again : 
Vol. xIvL— 55. 
but there, it is nice and comfortable, and my 
toes, too, are very interesting,” 
1 now propose, at the request of several 
friends and relations, to record in their native 
baldness the sayings of this particular baby. 
They are put down exactly as they were said, 
and not polished up or improved in the 
slightest. The earlier ones may give the 
totally wrong impression that she was a 
naughty and spoilt child. This, however, in 
fairness to her parents, she was not, and 
the following instances of infantile anger 
were practically the only ones out of the first 
half-dozen years of her life. 
1 do not for a moment mean that she was 
a “ good child,” like those terrible creatures 
in the improving story-books we used to 
read of, but, being blessed with sufficiently 
selfish parents, who refused to be bothered 
with a spoilt child, she soon realized that 
“ No ” meant “ No,” and that it was only 
productive of very sore little feet to kick 
against the pricks. 
One of the earliest of her remarks, worthy 
of notice here, was when, at the age of three, 
she went, a white-dressed babe, in awhile. Cee- 
sprung perambulator, propelled by a white- 
Sayings 
of Marj one. 
Edited by P. LI. NAISH. 
The 
