For had I not beautiful theories too when my eldest daughter arrived on the scene? We were living in one of the dullest, stupidest, nastiest little country towns in the world in those days, and there were few claims of society on me then. I had no particular occupations, and I was going to devote my energies to that poor child. I did. She howled remorselessly morning, noon, and night. The doctor, my dear old doctor, old-fashioned, too, in his notions, said my ways were correct, and he could not make out her shrieks at all. I confess I have struggled with her until I have wept with exhaustion, and at last a blessing in the shape of a good nurse arrived, and solved the mystery. The unfortunate infant was starved, and her shrieks were shrieks of hunger. She was introduced to a particularly nice Alderney cow; and from that day to this her cries ceased, and she has grown and thrived, and become an almost grown-up member of society, and a decidedly healthy one. Despite my experience with Muriel, I honestly attempted to ‘do my duty’ with the two next; there were no shrieks this time, but there were all sorts of other things, and the cow had soon to be called into requisition; and my two youngest children, who are stronger and far less liable to small ailments and colds than the other three, never had anything else, and were as good and prosperous a pair of babies and children as one may wish to see, for after No. 3 had proved to me my theories were very beautiful as theories, but rather unworkable in practice, I gave them up, trusted a great deal to my good nurse, and clung to the cow. Naturally, Londoners are at the mercy of their milkman, but the Alderney Dairy, for example, possesses a conscience and good milk; and no one will ever convince me that milk out of tins can ever come up to the fresh, nice, clean milk given by a properly managed and constituted cow; and, of course, in the country one has one’s own cows and sees exactly what is going on, and knows one has the same milk, until the child is old enough to bear the change.