There'd be a too great proportion of baking-powder, wouldn't there ?" "Indeed there would," assented Patty, much interested in the conversation, but a little bewildered.
"To try again," her father continued, "suppose your frock was so covered by trimming that the material could scarcely be seen at all." "Then," said Patty, who was rapidly learning her lesson, "then there'd be too great a proportion of trimming for the frock." "Ah," said her father, "you begin to see my drift, do you?
And if you had all tables in your house, and no chairs or bedsteads or bureaus, there'd be too great a proportion of tables, wouldn't there ?" "Yes; and I perceive," said Patty, slowly and with mock gravity, "that proportion means to have too many of one thing, when you'd better have a lot of others." "No, you're all wrong! That is a lack of proportion.

Proportion is to have exactly the right amount of each ingredient." "Yes,--and what has all this to do with Aunt Isabel?
Does she put too much baking-powder in her cake, or has she nothing but tables in her house ?" "Those, my dear, were only figures of speech.

But if you're going to make a home for your old father next year, I want you to learn from observation what are the principal ingredients to put into it, and then learn to adjust the proportions." "Papa, I believe I do know what you mean, but it's all out of proportion when you call yourself 'my old father,' for you're not old a bit.

You're a beautiful young man, and I'm sure any one who didn't know us would take you for my brother." "Come, come, Puss, you mustn't be so flattering, or I'll keep you here, and not let you go North at all; and I do believe you're just dying to go." "I'd like it lots if you were going too.

But to be away from you a whole year is no fun at all.