Explore "The Letters" by Edith Wharton on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
IT was the firm conviction of Andora Macy that every object in the Vincent Deerings' charming little house at Neuilly had been expressly designed for the Deerings' son to play with.
The house was full of pretty things, some not obviously applicable to the purpose; but Miss Macy's casuistry was equal tothe baby's appetite, and the baby's mother was no match for them in the art of defending her possessions. There were moments, in fact, when Lizzie almost fell in with Andora's summary division of her works of art into articles safe or unsafe for the baby to lick, or resisted it only to the extent of occasionally substituting some less precious or less perishable object for the particular fragility on which her son's desire was fixed. And it was with this intention that, on a certain fair spring morning -- which wore the added luster of being the baby's second birthday -- she had murmured, with her mouth in his curls, and one hand holding a bit of Chelsea above his dangerous clutch: "Wouldn't he rather have that beautiful shiny thing over there in Aunt Andorra's hand?"