There was already one little rocking shrine, up in that cosy temple opening out of Katie's bedroom--we beg her pardon, we should have said Mrs.
Charles Tudor's bedroom--one precious tabernacle in which was laid a little man-deity, a young Charley, to whom was daily paid a multitude of very sincere devotions.
How precious are all the belongings of a first baby; how dear are the cradle, the lace-caps, the first coral, all the little duds which are made with such punctilious care and anxious efforts of nicest needlework to encircle that small lump of pink humanity! What care is taken that all shall be in order! See that basket lined with crimson silk, prepared to hold his various garments, while the mother, jealous of her nurse, insists on tying every string with her own fingers.

And then how soon the change comes; how different it is when there are ten of them, and the tenth is allowed to inherit the well-worn wealth which the ninth, a year ago, had received from the eighth.

There is no crimson silk basket then, I trow.
'Jane, Jane, where are my boots ?' 'Mary, I've lost my trousers!' Such sounds are heard, shouted through the house from powerful lungs.
'Why, Charley,' says the mother, as her eldest hope rushes in to breakfast with dishevelled hair and dirty hands, 'you've got no handkerchief on your neck--what have you done with your handkerchief ?' 'No, mamma; it came off in the hay-loft, and I can't find it.' 'Papa,' says the lady wife, turning to her lord, who is reading his newspaper over his coffee--'papa, you really must speak to Charley; he will not mind me.

He was dressed quite nicely an hour ago, and do see what a figure he has made himself.' 'Charley,' says papa, not quite relishing this disturbance in the midst of a very interesting badger-baiting--'Charley, my boy, if you don't mind your P's and Q's, you and I shall fall out; mind that;' and he again goes on with his sport; and mamma goes on with her teapot, looking not exactly like Patience on a monument.
Such are the joys which await you, Mr.Charles Tudor; but not to such have you as yet arrived.

As yet there is but the one little pink deity in the rocking shrine above; but one, at least, of your own.