h a new synonym. It was at afternoon tea that
a sympathetic Sittie (the word means "Mother's younger sister"), knowing
that Chellalu had received something thoroughly well earned, asked her
in English: "What did Ammal give you this morning?" Chellalu caught at
the one familiar word in this sentence (for the babies learn the names
of the flowers in the garden before they are troubled with lesser
matters), and she answered brightly: "Morning-glory!" So Morning-glory
has become to us an _alias_ for smacks.

This same Morning-glory is the subject of one of the kindergarten songs.
For after searching through two or three hundred pages of nursery
rhymes, and interviewing many proper kindergarten songs, we found few
that belonged to the Indian babies' world; and so we had to make them
for ourselves. These songs are about the flowers and the birds and other
simple things, and are twittered by the tiniest with at least some
intelligence, which at present is as much as we can wish. All the babies
sing to the flowers, but it is Chellalu who gives them surprises. One
day we saw her standing under a bamboo arch, covered with her favourite
Morning-glory. She had two smaller babies with her, one on either side.
"Amma! _Look!_" she called; but italics are inadequate to express the
emphasis. "LOOK, Morning--glory--kissing--'chother," and she pointed
with eagerness to the nestling little clusters of lilac, growing, as
their pretty manner is, close to each other. Then, seizing each of the
babies in a fervent and somewhat embarrassing embrace, she hugged and
kissed them both; and finally wheeling round on the flowers, addressed
them impressively: "For--all--loving--little--Indian--children--want--
to--be--like--you."

CHAPTER IV

The Photographs

[Illustration: "THAT THING AGAIN!" (_Page 28._)]

I DO not know how they will strike the critical public, but the photos
are so much better than we dared to expect, that we are grateful and
almost satisfied. Of course, they are insipid as compared with the
lively originals; but the difficulty was to get them of any truthful
sort whatsoever, for the babies regarded the photographer--the kindest
and mildest of men--with the gravest suspicion: and the moment he
appeared, little faces, all animation before, would stiffen into
shyness, and the light would slip out of them, and the naturalness, so
that all the camera saw, and therefore all it could show, was a
succession of blanks.

Then