.

A NIGHT OFF.
The Henshaw family did not return to the Strata until late in September.
Billy said that the sea air seemed to agree so well with the baby it would be a pity to change until the weather became really too cool at the shore to be comfortable.
William came back from his fishing trip in August, and resumed his old habit of sleeping at the house and taking his meals at the club.

To be sure, for a week he went back and forth between the city and the beach house; but it happened to be a time when Bertram, Jr., was cutting a tooth, and this so wore upon William's sympathy--William still could not help insisting it _might_ be a pin--that he concluded peace lay only in flight.

So he went back to the Strata.
Bertram had stayed at the cottage all summer, painting industriously.
Heretofore he had taken more of a vacation through the summer months, but this year there seemed to be nothing for him to do but to paint.

He did not like to go away on a trip and leave Billy, and she declared she could not take the baby nor leave him, and that she did not need any trip, anyway.
"All right, then, we'll just stay at the beach, and have a fine vacation together," he had answered her.
As Bertram saw it, however, he could detect very little "vacation" to it.