Aunt Charlotte looked up under her eyebrows, and hid another sheet of paper. "What's put that in your head all of a sudden?"
"It's because of my babies. Catty says I couldn't have thirteen all under three years old. But I could, couldn't I?"
"I'm afraid I don't think you could," Aunt Charlotte said.
"Why not? Catty won't say why."
Aunt Charlotte shook her head, but she was smiling and looking wiser and more solemn than ever. "You mustn't ask too many questions," she said.
"But you haven't told me what being born is. I know it's got something to do with the Virgin Mary."
Aunt Charlotte said, "Sh-sh-sh! You mustn't say that. Nice little girls don't think about those things."
Her tilted eyes had turned down and her mouth had stopped smiling. So you knew that being born was not frightening. It had something to do with the things you didn't talk about.
And ye—how could it? There was the Virgin Mary.
"Aunt Charlotte, don't you wish you had a baby?"