The picture painted in remembrance of the journey in Switzerland had been finished and dispatched, and this is what Aunt Susan wrote about it:--
"We are now in possession of our picture, which we received from Agnew yesterday morning, and we are very much pleased with it; my impression is that it is a very good, well-finished painting: we have not yet concluded where to hang it for a proper and good light. We are very glad to hear that _Mamzelle_ Mary Susan Marguerite (as Uncle Thomas called her) is thriving and good; be sure and give her a kiss for each of us."
_Mamzelle_ Mary Susan Marguerite had been born early in the spring, and to the general wonder of the household, seemed to have reconciled her father to the inevitable cries and noises of babyhood. Brought up by two maiden aunts in a large, solitary house in the country, and addicted from early youth to study, my husband had a perfect horror of noises of all kinds, and could not understand that they were unavoidable in some circumstances; he used to call out from the top of the stairs to the servants below "to stop their noise," or "to hold their tongues," whenever he overheard them singing to the babies or laughing to amuse them, and if the children's crying became audible in the upper regions, he declared that the house was not fit to live in, still less to work in. One morning when the youngest boy was loudly expressing his distaste for the ceremonies of the toilet, his father--no less loudly--was giving vent to his irritation at the disturbance, and calling out to shut _all_ the doors; but he could not help being very much amused by the resolute interference of the eldest brother--three years old--who, crossing his little fat arms, and standing his ground firmly, delivered this oracle: "Papa, babies _must_ cry." I suppose he had heard this wise sentence from the nurse, but he gave it as solemnly as if it were the result of his own reflections. Whether a few years' experience had rendered his father more patient generally, or whether he had become alive to the charm of babyhood--to which he had hitherto remained insensible--it was a fact first noticed by the nurse that "Monsieur, quand la petite criait, voulait savoir ce qu'elle avait, et la prenait même dans ses bras pour la consoler."