“She's perfect!” she says, “perfect and lovely.”

“All right,” I says, “then I don't mind.”

Marthy smiled, sort of weak.

“You will joke,” she says.

“Joke!” says Mrs. Murphy, indignant; “insult, I call it. Did you ever see a finer baby?”

I looked to see if she winked. She didn't.

“How so?” I asked, my voice all of a tremble.

“How so?” she asks; “No 'how so' at all. She weighs ten pounds, and she's sound in wind and limb,” she says, “and look at the grand shape of her head! She'll be a college professoress at least, or maybe in Congress before her pa. It's a grand baby she is!”

“Ten pounds!” I says; “ain't that some dwarfish?”

“Hear the man!” she says. “I don't believe he knows a fine baby when he sees one.”