“Yes. One would think there were never any babies born before, to hear him talk. He thinks they're the most wonderful things in the world--and they are cunning little fellows, I'll admit. But Cyril thinks they _know_ so much,” went on Kate, laughingly. “He's always bragging of something one or the other of them has done. Think of it--_Cyril!_ Marie says it all started from the time last January when he discovered the nurses had been calling them Dot and Dimple.” “Yes, I know,” smiled Billy again, faintly, lifting a thin, white, very un-Billy-like hand to her head. Kate frowned, and regarded her sister-in-law thoughtfully. “Mercy! how you look, Billy!” she exclaimed, with cheerful tactlessness. “They said you did, but, I declare, you look worse than I thought.” Billy's pale face reddened perceptibly. “Nonsense! It's just that I'm so--so tired,” she insisted. “I shall be all right soon. How did you leave the children?” “Well, and happy--'specially little Kate, because mother was going away. Kate is mistress, you know, when I'm gone, and she takes herself very seriously.” “Mistress! A little thing like her! Why, she can't be more than ten or eleven,” murmured Billy. “She isn't. She was ten last month. But you'd think she was forty, the airs she gives herself, sometimes. Oh, of course there's Nora, and the cook, and Miss Winton, the governess, there to really manage things, and Mother Hartwell is just around the corner; but little Kate _thinks_ she's managing, so she's happy.” Billy suppressed a smile. Billy was thinking that little Kate came naturally by at least one of her traits. “Really, that child is impossible, sometimes,” resumed Mrs. Hartwell, with a sigh. “You know the absurd things she was always saying two or three years ago, when we came on to Cyril's wedding.” “Yes, I remember.” “Well, I thought she would get over it. But she doesn't. She's worse, if anything; and sometimes her insight, or intuition, or whatever you may call it, is positively uncanny. I never know what she's going to remark next, when I take her anywhere; but it's safe to say, whatever it is, it'll be unexpected and _usually_ embarrassing to somebody. And--is that the baby?” broke off Mrs. Hartwell, as a cooing laugh and a woman's voice came from the next room. “Yes. The nurse has just brought him in, I think,” said Billy. “Then I'll go right now and see him,” rejoined Kate, rising to her feet and hurrying into the next room. Left alone, Billy lay back wearily in her reclining-chair. She wondered why Kate always tired her so. She wished she had had on her blue kimono, then perhaps Kate would not have thought she looked so badly. Blue was always more becoming to her than-- Billy turned her head suddenly. From the next room had come Kate's clear-cut, decisive voice. “Oh, no, I don't think he looks a bit like his father. That little snubby nose was never the Henshaw nose.”