The Misses Packer were in ecstasies of admiration, although, of course, we did not permit unskilled evidence to turn our heads. Still, they had seen many babies in their time and were entitled to respectful hearing when they indulged in comparison between Lavender and those others. "Mrs. Harvey's baby, you remember, Emmie," said Miss Laura, "was a picture; but nothing compared with Mrs. Falconer's. There's a something about this little darling--I don't know what it is, but a something--which makes it more remarkable than any I've ever seen." Miss Emma agreed with her, attempting--I thought hazardously--to discover what the something was, but of course failing. Mrs. Wiles also came in to worship, and as she gazed grew very tearful. "Adopted children are all very well," she said, "and my Annie's a little pet; but there's nothing like one of your own. Well, well, we can't have everything, and Wiles has just bought a lovely gramophone, and Annie is trying to say 'Daddy' and 'Mammy' quite natural; and the invites that come to us to join committees of charitable societies, with lords and ladies sitting on them too, would make some of our friends go green with envy." CHAPTER XXXVI IN WHICH MRS. DUCKIE EMPLOYS AN ANNIHILATING PHRASE WHICH SO RANKLES THAT IT SEEMS ALMOST ABSURD TO GO ON AT ALL Mrs. Duckie, whom, after her long speech to me on the duties of husbands, I felt I must acquaint with Lavender's arrival, came up in her best bonnet to see the ladies. She had tea with me afterwards in the sitting-room, the nurse having driven her and her kindly but not too reposeful tongue sternly forth. She said nothing for a minute or two except about Mr. Duckie and the "Gog and Magog Chop House," which is doing famously, thanking me for my share in it; but then, laying down her cup, she uttered quietly, as if speaking of the weather, the most devastating words I ever listened to. "It's the healthiest baby I ever saw," she said, "and I've seen many. I'm so glad about it. And now you could die to-morrow, Mr. Falconer, if you liked." Did you ever hear of such a bombshell? What on earth did she mean? I asked. "Why," she said, "I often think about it. That's what we're for--to marry and have children. But I didn't mean to say what I did. It must have sounded dreadful. It just popped out. Still, you're one as understands. You know what a difference there is between a father and a mother--the mothers have all the responsibility." "All very well," I said, "if one were limited to one child. But am I not needed for more?" "Oh," said Mrs. Duckie, laughing, "don't worry about that. You'll never have another. Not you! You've got 'one child only' written all over you." "Then Nature's done with me?" I said as lightly as I could. "Oh, I dare say you'll live to be eighty, and I hope you will," Mrs. Duckie replied, "such a nice gentleman as you are; but you've--you've----" "I've answered her purpose," I suggested bravely.