But I can't, I find." "Can't buy what you need! What do you mean ?" Billy laughed ruefully.
"Well, every other question I ask Eliza, she says: 'Why, I don't know; you have to use your judgment.' Just as if I had any judgment about how much salt to use, or what dish to take! Dear me, Aunt Hannah, the man that will grow judgment and can it as you would a mess of peas, has got his fortune made!" "What an absurd child you are, Billy," laughed Aunt Hannah.

"I used to tell Marie--By the way, how is Marie?
Have you seen her lately ?" "Oh, yes, I saw her yesterday," twinkled Billy.

"She had a book of wall-paper samples spread over the back of a chair, two bunches of samples of different colored damasks on the table before her, a 'Young Mother's Guide' propped open in another chair, and a pair of baby's socks in her lap with a roll each of pink, and white, and blue ribbon.
She spent most of the time, after I had helped her choose the ribbon, in asking me if I thought she ought to let the baby cry and bother Cyril, or stop its crying and hurt the baby, because her 'Mother's Guide' says a certain amount of crying is needed to develop a baby's lungs." Aunt Hannah laughed, but she frowned, too.
"The idea! I guess Cyril can stand proper crying--and laughing, too--from his own child!" she said then, crisply.
"Oh, but Marie is afraid he can't," smiled Billy.

"And that's the trouble.

She says that's the only thing that worries her--Cyril." "Nonsense!" ejaculated Aunt Hannah.
"Oh, but it isn't nonsense to Marie," retorted Billy.