darkened.

"How are you, my dear?" said my father, with compassionate tenderness,
as he groped his way to the bed.

A faint voice muttered: "Better now, and so happy!" And at the same
moment Mrs. Primmins pulled my father away, lifted a coverlid from a
small cradle, and holding a candle within an inch of an undeveloped
nose, cried emphatically, "There--bless it!"

"Of course, ma'am, I bless it," said my father, rather peevishly. "It
is my duty to bless it--Bless It! And this, then, is the way we come
into the world!--red, very red,--blushing for all the follies we are
destined to commit."

My father sat down on the nurse's chair, the women grouped round him.
He continued to gaze on the contents of the cradle, and at length said,
musingly, "And Homer was once like this!"

At this moment--and no wonder, considering the propinquity of the candle
to his visual organs--Homer's infant likeness commenced the first
untutored melodies of nature.

"Homer improved greatly in singing as he grew older," observed Mr.
Squills, the accoucheur, who was engaged in some mysteries in a corner
of the room.

My father stopped his ears. "Little things can make a great noise,"
said he, philosophically; "and the smaller the thing; the greater noise
it can make."