emale daemons
who presided over the Neogilos, or New-born. They take the name from
Juno. See Homer, Book XI. By the by, will my Neogilos be brought up like
Hector, or Astyanax--videlicet, nourished by its mother, or by a nurse?"

"Which do you prefer, Mr. Caxton?" asked Mr. Squills, breaking the sugar
in his tumbler. "In this I always deem it my duty to consult the wishes
of the gentleman."

"A nurse by all means, then," said my father. "And let her carry him upo
kolpo, next to her bosom. I know all that has been said about mothers
nursing their own infants, Mr. Squills; but poor Kitty is so sensitive
that I think a stout, healthy peasant woman will be the best for the
boy's future nerves, and his mother's nerves, present and future too.
Heigh-ho! I shall miss the dear woman very much. When will she be up,
Mr. Squills?"

"Oh, in less than a fortnight!"

"And then the Neogilos shall go to school,--upo kolpo,--the nurse with
him, and all will be right again," said my father, with a look of sly,
mysterious humor which was peculiar to him.

"School! when he's just born?"

"Can't begin too soon," said my father, positively; "that's Helvetius'
opinion, and it is mine too!"

CHAPTER III.

That I was a very wonderful child, I take for granted; but nevertheless
it was not of my own knowledge that I came into possession of the
circumstances set down in my former chapters. But my father's conduct
on the occasion of my birth made a notable impression upon all who
witnessed it; and Mr. Squills and Mrs. Primmins have related the facts
to me sufficiently often to make me as well acquainted with them as
those worthy witnesses themselves. I fancy I see my father before me, in
his dark-gray dressing-gown, and with his odd, half-sly, half-innocent
twitch of the mouth, and peculiar puzzling look, from two quiet,
abstracted, indolently handsome eyes, at the moment he agreed with
Helvetius on the propriety of sending me to school as soon as I was
born. Nobody knew exactly what to make of my father,--his wife excepted.
The people of Abdera sent for Hippocrates to cure the supposed insanity
of Democritus, "who at that time," saith Hippocrates, dryly, "was
seriously engaged in philosophy." That same people of Abdera would
certainly have found very alarming symptoms of madness in my poor
father; for, like Democritus, "he esteemed as nothing the things, great
or small, in which the rest of the world were employed." Accordingly,
s