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Quincy Anne Chu is seven pounds and six ounces.  She has reddish chestnut brown fuzz for hair, a tear-drop face, sculpted feather brows, feline hazel eyes with long veiling lashes, and full heart-shaped lips.  Her complexion is rose-bronze.  She is a beauty.  Her mother and father gaze at her in disbelief as she is being wiped clean by the mid-wife.  Homer, at first, holds her so gingerly that he nearly drops the little babe.  But his confidence immediately grows when Sappho lays her hand on his shoulder to reassure him that he is doing fine.

Once in her mother’s arms, with Sappho’s silky voice cooing over her, Quincy wiggles in return.  She recognizes Sappho’s voice at once and seems extremely curious to find out from where the other voices are coming.  The two mid-wives, then Rachel, Sappho’s cousin, then George, Homer’s best friend, and, finally, Kathyrn, George’s girlfriend – all take their turn to peer over Quincy Anne and all chime compliments alternating between how lively to how pretty Quincy is.  Mrs. Chu is obviously pleased with her granddaughter but restrains everyone else’s natural inclination to bubble over with praise with this warning:  “To praise within the spirits’ hearing is not wise for they could get spiteful and steal our present happiness away,” and then she whispers coarsely over Quincy Anne, “Look at this little pig.”  Oddly, no one counter responds.  Superstition finds unlikely bedmates.