A boy is already potentially a father; whereas a girl, if she marry at all, is bound to marry out of her own family into another, and is relatively lost.

The full force of the deprivation is, however, to some degree tempered by the almost infinite possibilities of adoption.

Daughters are, therefore, not utterly unmitigable evils.
From the privacy of the domestic circle, the infant's entrance into public life is performed pick-a-back.

Strapped securely to the shoulders of a slightly older sister, out he goes, consigned to the tender mercies of a being who is scarcely more than a baby herself.

The diminutiveness of the nurse-perambulators is the most surprising part of the performance.