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apathy until aroused by a new occasion—by a baptism, a wedding, or other happening of the kind. Directly a child was born the parents made it their first care to perform over the little one every ceremony prescribed by decorum, and then to follow up the christening with a banquet. Thereafter the child's bringing up began according to a system dictated by the mother and the nurse for his healthy development, and for his protection from cold, from the evil eye, and from sundry other inimical influences. Indeed, no pains were spared to keep the youngster in good appetite and spirits. Also as soon as he was able to fend for himself, and a nurse had become a superfluity, his mother would be seized with a desire to procure for him a helpmeet as strong and as ruddy as himself; whereupon there would ensue a further epoch of rites and feastings, until eventually a marriage had been arranged. Always this consummation represented the epitome of life's incidents, and as soon as it was reached there began a repetition of births, rites, and banquets, until, finally, a funeral ceremony interrupted the festivities—though not for long, since other faces would appear to succeed the old ones, and children would