a healthy child, say everything he knows
but that. He will go through his limited vocabulary in a pathetically
obliging manner, making the most beautiful "moo-moos" and
"quack-quacks," but he will not say, "Ta-ta." Why should he? On
persuasion, and more especially if the interview should take place at
a street-corner on a windy March day, he will repeat the "moo-moos" and
"quack-quacks" even more successfully than before, and he will wonder
in what way they fall short of perfection, since he earns no praise. He
likes to be rewarded with, "Kevver boy." We all do, just as a matter of
form, if nothing else. Surely ordinary politeness demands it.

He will not say, "Ta-ta," though. Who knows but what it is innate
politeness on his part and his way of saying, "Oh, don't go! What a
flying visit!"

However, the professional aunt cannot be sure of this, although she can
guess; so she must wait patiently, for the sake of Baby's morals and
nurse's feelings, until he does say, "Ta-ta." We may suppose that he
at last loses his temper and says it, meaning, no doubt, "For goodness
sake, go!" if not something stronger. The nurse is satisfied, the aunt
is released, and the conscientious objector is wheeled away.

Besides ministering to the soul of a baby the aunt must tend to its
bodily needs, and for this reason she must be a good needlewoman.

Before the arrival of the first nephew or niece, when she is very
unprofessional, she will hastily put her work under the sofa or behind
the cushion when any one comes into the room. As she grows older and
more professional, and the nephews and nieces become more numerous, she
will give up hiding her work. People who are intimately connected with
the family will show no surprise, and to inquisitive strangers, unless
she is very religious, she can murmur something about a creche, so long,
of course, as Zerlina is not there.

The really successful aunt, one who is at the top of her profession,
can perfectly well be trusted to take all the children to the Zoo alone;
that is to say, without a nurse, and of course without the mother. The
mother knows how pleased and gratified an aunt feels on being given the
entire charge of the children. The nurse is gratified too; in fact
every one is pleased, with perhaps the exception of the aunt. But it is
against professional etiquette for her to say so. She only wonders why
mothers think a privilege they hold so lightly--taking the children
to the Zoo--s