She remembered with disgust how overgrown that boy was, and how his stockings were darned at the knees; and how she had seen patches of new cloth on his trousers, and had heard her aunt Maria say that he was so hard on his clothes on account of his passion for bird-nesting, that it was all his mother could do to keep him always decent.

How could she have thought for a moment of a bird-nesting sort of boy?
She was so thankful that the baby was a girl.

Maria, as sometimes happens, had a rather inverted system of growth.

With most, dolls come first, then boys; with her, dolls had not come at all.

Boys came first, then her little baby sister, which was to her in the place of a doll, and the boys got promptly relegated to the background.
Much to Maria's delight, the French nurse, whom she at once disliked and stood in awe of, only remained until the baby was about two months old, then a little nurse-girl was engaged.