"Don't you see it in the unexpected good fortune which came with
this child?" asked Timothy.

"I've no doubt it seems bright enough, now," said Rachel, gloomily,
"but a young child's a great deal of trouble."

"Do you speak from experience, Aunt Rachel?" inquired Jack,
demurely.

"Yes;" said his aunt, slowly; "if all babies were as cross as you
were when you were an infant, three hundred dollars wouldn't begin
to pay for the trouble of having one round."

Mr. Crump and his wife laughed at this sally at Jack's expense, but
the latter had his wits about him sufficiently to answer, "I've
always heard, Aunt Rachel, that the crosser a child is the
pleasanter he will grow up. What a very pleasant baby you must have
been!"

"Jack!" said his mother, reprovingly; but his father, who looked
upon it as a good joke, remarked, good-humoredly, "He's got you
there, Rachel."

The latter, however, took it as a serious matter, and observed that,
when she was young, children were not allowed to speak so to their
elders. "But, I don't know as I can blame 'em much," she continued,
wiping her eyes with the corner of her apron, "when their own
parents encourage 'em in it."

Timothy was warned, by experience, that silence was his best (sic)