I could write pages about people’s first babies, poor little things! What experiments are tried on them in the way of hygienic and stupid clothes, the patent foods, the ghastly tins of milk, and the fearful medicines! I do not believe one young mother exists who has not her own special theories about babies, and who does not scorn proudly the experience so freely offered her by her mother, who has brought up a family, and may therefore be supposed to know something of children, or by her numerous friends who have all made a more or less successful effort in the same direction. And, between ourselves, I have often wondered how any first child ever grows up, so wonderful are the trials it goes through, so marvellous are the plans tried, to insure that perfection that each Angelina in turn thinks lies latent in the small red squalling person that makes such a remarkable change in all the household arrangements all at once. The first danger that assails Angelina when baby arrives is that Edwin’s life shall be made a burden to him because all his little comforts are forgotten, the hours of meals altered, and Angelina herself is off upstairs every two minutes, because the dear infant is howling, or because she fancies he is howling. Even so, the nurse should be capable of quelling the rage, unassisted by her mistress, or she is not worth her wages, and had better go. I hope I shall not be considered hard-hearted if I tell Angelina quite in confidence, that, if she can depend upon her cow, baby becomes a pleasure instead of a nuisance, if he or she and the cow are introduced at a very early stage of his or her career. In these days of ours few women are strong enough or have sufficient leisure to give themselves up entirely to the infant’s convenience; and I maintain that a woman has as much right to consider herself and her health, and her duties to her husband, society at large, and her own house, as to give herself up body and soul to a baby, who thrives as well on the bottle, if properly looked after, as on anything else. I know quite well that by saying this I may lay myself open to all sorts of medical opinions, and I am sure to be told I am disgracing my sex. But, as I have done all through my book, I am speaking from experience, and only on subjects of which I have personal knowledge.