It would have been laughable, if at the same time it had not been so terribly socially deplorable, to see the ridiculous fuss they made of that baby of Aunt Jerry's. These people did not seem to have as much as a glimmer of the true significance of childhood--not to speak of its rights. They did not seem to realize that every false impression it acquired now would have to be corrected, painfully and with labour and tears, in the long years to come. It did not seem to occur to them, for example, that it was in the last degree important that, from the very beginning, its eyes should rest on none but beautiful and sage-green objects; instead they let it see Mr. Wellcome. They seemed to be totally ignorant of the fact that, already, beauty born of murmuring sound should be passing into its mite of a face; they prodded it, and guffawed in its tender ears, and said "Boh!" and "Diddums!" And was it conducive to a proper modesty and earnestness of purpose in later years that the child should be told already that it was precious and a gem, and that its mother could eat it, and (when it expressed its just resentment by a cry, so that its father had to take it into his arms and to sing to it), that the hills and the towers (the oasthouses presumably) that it could see from the window all belonged to it? That was a lie. They did not, and never would. Amory hoped that by the time it grew up there would be no such thing as private ownership of hills and oasthouses. But there they were, all of them, poisoning its vague young mind, and really not thinking of it at all, but of their own stupid cachinnations and witticisms. No wonder it cried. And Mr. Wellcome was positively devastating in his humour. Mrs. Deschamps had her small fingers on his mouth even as Amory and Cosimo entered, trying to prevent the utterance of some dreadful facetiousness or other; pretty Miss Crebbin was blushing at it yet; but Mr. Wellcome tore Mrs. Deschamps' hand away as he saw the newcomers, and cried, "Well, all I can say is hooray for the little difference--here's Cos and Am--is all right behind, George?--Here, Cos, come and be getting your hand in----" And he snatched the baby and forced it into Cosimo's arms.