“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. Why, Aunt Hannah, that little thing knows a whole lot already. He's known me for weeks; I know he has. And ages and ages ago he began to give me little smiles when he saw me. They were smiles--real smiles! Oh, yes, I know nurse said they weren't smiles at the first,” admitted Billy, in answer to Aunt Hannah's doubting expression. “I know nurse said it was only wind on his stomach. Think of it--wind on his stomach! Just as if I didn't know the difference between my own baby's smile and wind on his stomach! And you don't know how soon he began to follow my moving finger with his eyes!” “Yes, I tried that one day, I remember,” observed Aunt Hannah demurely. “I moved my finger. He looked at the ceiling--_fixedly_.” “Well, probably he _wanted_ to look at the ceiling, then,” defended the young mother, promptly. “I'm sure I wouldn't give a snap for a baby if he didn't sometimes have a mind of his own, and exercise it!” “Oh, Billy, Billy,” laughed Aunt Hannah, with a shake of her head as Billy turned away, chin uptilted. By the time Bertram, Jr., was three months old, Billy was unmistakably her old happy, merry self, strong and well. Affairs at the Strata once more were moving as by clockwork--only this time it was a baby's hand that set the clock, and that wound it, too. Billy told her husband very earnestly that now they had entered upon a period of Enormous Responsibility. The Life, Character, and Destiny of a Human Soul was intrusted to their care, and they must be Wise, Faithful, and Efficient. They must be at once Proud and Humble at this their Great Opportunity. They must Observe, Learn, and Practice. First and foremost in their eyes must always be this wonderful Important Trust. Bertram laughed at first very heartily at Billy's instructions, which, he declared, were so bristling with capitals that he could fairly see them drop from her lips. Then, when he found how really very much in earnest she was, and how hurt she was at his levity, he managed to pull his face into something like sobriety while she talked to him, though he did persist in dropping kisses on her cheeks, her chin, her finger-tips, her hair, and the little pink lobes of her ears--“just by way of punctuation” to her sentences, he said. And he told her that he wasn't really slighting her lips, only that they moved so fast he could not catch them. Whereat Billy pouted, and told him severely that he was a bad, naughty boy, and that he did not deserve to be the father of the dearest, most wonderful baby in the world.