"My own flesh and blood?" she repeated, as if surprised. "Well, yes, perhaps we love all children that way when we think of what we owe them. I never pretended, as some girls do when they are craving to get married, that my instincts were those of a brooding hen. Perhaps my head was too giddy to deserve a family in my young days. I know girls who can't sleep for thinking about it before they are sixteen. But I have got to be twenty, without feeling that I am rather late. If it is wrong, it is not my fault. I am as God made me, and I have gone along as he pushed me. To tell the truth, a baby is a hard task-master, unreasonable as a crazy husband and obstinate as a hungry animal. I like justice and good sense, and I should much prefer quieter and more sensible company. Also I like cleanliness; you have often laughed at me for worrying about a speck of dust on the dresser and letting a fly in the milk turn my stomach. Now a baby is always getting into the dirt, no matter how you may try to prevent it. And then I am fond of thinking, and dreaming, and recollecting things; but a baby won't let you think of anything but his wants, and gets angry if you pay no attention to him. But all that is neither here nor there, Tiennet, when God takes the matter in hand. He invented a sort of miracle which takes place inside of us when need be; and now I know a thing which I never believed until it happened to me, and that is that a child, no matter how ugly and ill-tempered it is, may be bitten by a wolf or trampled by a goat, but never by a woman, and that he will end by managing her--unless she is made of another wood than the rest of us." As she said this we were entering my house, where Charlot was playing with my sister's children. "Well, I'm glad you have come," said my sister to Brulette; "you certainty have the most ill-tempered child that ever lived. He has beaten mine, and bitten them, and provoked them, and one needs forty cartloads of patience and pity to get along with him." Brulette laughed, and going up to Charlot, who never gave her any welcome, she said, as she watched him playing after his fashion, and as if he could understand what she said: "I knew very well you could not make these kind people love you. There is no one but me, you poor little screech-owl, who can put up with your claws and your beak." Though Charlot was only eighteen months old it seemed as if he really understood what Brulette was saying; for he got up, after looking at her for a moment with a thoughtful air, and jumped upon her and seized her hand and devoured it with kisses. "Hey!" cried my sister, "then he really has his good moments, after all?" "My dear," said Brulette, "I am just as much astounded as you are. This is the first time I have ever known him behave so." Then, kissing Charlot on his heavy eyelids she began to cry with joy and tenderness.