But Monica took very little notice; she hugged her baby all the closer, and her bright little eyes glanced quickly and furtively round at the newcomers, only she felt prouder than ever.

She was induced, after much persuasion, to allow the baby to be inspected, which the newcomers did thoroughly.  Not an eye, a limb, a finger-nail, or even a hair, escaped their attention, but were examined and criticized with the utmost gravity.

One old mother monkey, who had a large family herself, regarded the baby gravely, and her worried, careworn old face looked a little more worried and a little more careworn, if possible, while criticizing him.

“Isn’t he lovely?” Monica whispered proudly.

“Not a bad baby,” the old mother monkey said, gravely, “but delicate, Monica, delicate—­and born under an unlucky star.”

The young mother started, and grasped her baby as though it were going to be torn from her.

“He will never have any luck,” the mother monkey went on, gravely; “but he will never come to very much harm.

“He will never have any luck, but he will never come to very much harm.”  This significant sentence Monica repeated to herself, over and over again, all through that night, never losing the dread which this ominous saying had implanted in her heart.  The dreadful words seemed to be ringing in her ears all the time the chattering of the neighbors was going on, and when they had left her, and had gone back to their respective homes, full of the new event, she listened to their chattering dying away in the distance, and then suddenly a few hot tears fell on the baby’s head.  And these few tears were Mona’s christening.

The next day, however, Monica began to think she had been very foolish in paying any attention to what the old mother monkey had said.  The joy of motherhood, and the proud possession of a baby monkey of her own, eclipsed everything else, even the ominous warning.  She was so busy, too, with the cares and duties of motherhood; there was so much to be seen and attended to, and the new baby required so much attention.

Monica was very, very proud of him, but as the days grew into weeks she began to wish that Mona, as she had called him, and which was a family name, would not whimper quite so much; it made her nervous sometimes, and irritated her, and once she had even gone so far as to give him a smart slap in reprimand.  She began to realize, too, as time went on, that there was something in what the mother monkey had said:  Mona was decidedly delicate and undoubtedly unlucky.

When he was about a week old, his mother left him for a somewhat longer time than usual to get a little fresh fruit for herself.  Before leaving Mona, however, she had given him his breakfast of nice, warm milk, and covered him over with dry leaves and grass.  Not that it was cold, but by covering him up she guarded against danger.  His funny little, brown head and face were so much the color and so like the dry leaves and grass he was lying in that it would have been very difficult for anyone but a mother monkey to know that there was anything there at all.