in the
mornings is so much to be found fault with as chattering at night. It is
only children who are so silly as to keep themselves awake when the time
for going to sleep has come. The birds and the bees, and the little
lambs even, all know when that time has come, and go to sleep without
any worry to themselves or other people. But children are not always so
sensible. I _could_ tell you a story--only I am afraid if she were to
read it in this little book it would make her feel so ashamed that I
should really be sorry for her, so I will not tell you her name nor
where she lives--of a little girl who was promised two pounds, two whole
gold pounds--fancy! if for one month she would go quietly to sleep at
night when she was put to bed, and let her sister do the same; and she
was to lose two shillings every night she forgot or disobeyed. Well,
what do you think? at the end of two weeks the two pounds had come down
already to nineteen shillings! She had forgotten already ten times, or
ten and a half times--I don't quite understand how it had come to
nineteen, but so it had; and at the end of the month--no I don't think
I will tell you what it had come down to. Only this will show you how
much more difficult it is to get out of a bad habit than to get into a
good one, for this little girl is very sweet and good in many ways, and
I love her dearly--_only_ she had got into this bad habit, and it was
stronger, as bad habits so often are, than her real true wish to do what
her mother told her.

But I have wandered away from Herr Baby, and I am afraid you won't be
pleased. He was forced, I was saying, to tell Denny a good many things,
because he was most with her. I don't think he would have told her as
much but for that, for Denny's head was a very flighty one, and she
never cared to think or talk about the same thing for long together,
which was not _at all_ Herr Baby's way. _He_ liked to think a good deal
about everything, and one thing lasted him a good while.

"Him's been d'eaming such a lot," he said to Denny this morning.

"I think dreams are very stupid," said Denny. "What's the good of them?
If they made things come _real_ they would be some good. Like, you know,
if I was to dream somebody gave me something awfully nice, and then when
I woke up I was to see the thing on my bed, _then_ dreams would be some
good."

"But if zou d'eamed somesing dedful, like being shuttened up in a t'unk
like _poor_ little mother, _zen_