It has been a fortnight of great trial. Elspeth was left very weak and ill and is by no means well yet. She has had a very hard time. The infant is as good as gold and amazingly healthy. She cries very seldom. I had always imagined that children cried through the entire night, but this kid never cries at all: she is one big smile by day and contentedly sleepy at night. She is beautifully proportioned and has large blue eyes and regular features. I had always thought men rather fools who raved about their children's looks: all babies used to look alike to me. Now I know that there never was such a baby as mine: I look anxiously into "prams" along the road and compare the babies whom I see there with mine. I have managed to hide my affection for her from all the people who ask me silly questions. I'm not going to be classed with all the other fathers there ever were as a blind worshipper of my own child. Her hands and feet give me undiluted pleasure. It is amazing to watch her moving them about: her suppleness ought to be a sign of healthy activity in the future. Her head is small and splendidly proportioned. I hope she does not grow up a fool. She gives Elspeth a wonderful, never-ending interest in life: she thinks of nothing else. It is the best thing that could possibly have happened to her: we ought to have had a child at the very beginning. I am more proud of her than I dare acknowledge to any one except myself. I should like to write a book just jotting down her daily growth, her recognition of her mother, of the nurse, of me, of strangers, of things in a room. At present she loves looking at her hands and she keeps her thumb in her mouth most of the day and night. She has an extraordinary amount of individuality: unluckily, she is terribly frightened of any sudden noise. This must be inherited. I hope to Heaven that she does not inherit her father's dementia as well. At present she has got, I am told, exactly the expression of my eyes, the far-away, detached look varied by a piercing, questioning, quizzical gaze that so disconcerts strangers. Elspeth's mother is extraordinarily attached to her and would give her life for her: it is a joy to see the delight which the infant takes in her grandmother and vice versa. We have christened her Prunella after my mother. I had the luck to get Tony down to the christening to be her godfather. Elspeth is going to spend the first part of the holidays in Bath while I take Tony for a walking tour in Devon and Cornwall during his convalescence. He has been wounded in both arms. He, like everybody else, thinks her perfect. I only hope that she will grow up loving us and finding us worthy of her love. We must try to make life easier for her than it has been for us. _September 20, 1916_