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BILLY AND THE ENORMOUS RESPONSIBILITY.
When the doctor heard from the nurse of Mrs.Hartwell's visit and what had come of it, he only gave a discreet smile, as befitted himself and the occasion; but to his wife privately, that night, the doctor said, when he had finished telling the story: "And I couldn't have prescribed a better pill if I'd tried!" "_Pill_--Mrs.Hartwell! Oh, Harold," reproved the doctor's wife, mildly.
But the doctor only chuckled the more, and said: "You wait and see." If Billy's friends were worried before because of her lassitude and lack of ambition, they were almost as worried now over her amazing alertness and insistent activity.

Day by day, almost hour by hour, she seemed to gain in strength; and every bit she acquired she promptly tested almost to the breaking point, so plainly eager was she to be well and strong.
And always, from morning until night, and again from night until morning, the pivot of her existence, around which swung all thoughts, words, actions, and plans, was the sturdy little plump-cheeked, firm-fleshed atom of humanity known as Bertram, Jr.

Even Aunt Hannah remonstrated with her at last.
"But, Billy, dear," she exclaimed, "one would almost get the idea that you thought there wasn't a thing in the world but that baby!" Billy laughed.
"Well, do you know, sometimes I 'most think there isn't," she retorted unblushingly.
"Billy!" protested Aunt Hannah; then, a little severely, she demanded: "And who was it that just last September was calling this same only-object-in-the-world a third person in your home ?" "Third person, indeed! Aunt Hannah, did I?
Did I really say such a dreadful thing as that?
But I didn't know, then, of course.

I couldn't know how perfectly wonderful a baby is, especially such a baby as Bertram, Jr., is.