“No, I know I don't,” beamed Bertram, with cheerful unrepentance; “but I am, just the same,” he finished triumphantly. And this time he contrived to find his wife's lips. “Oh, Bertram,” sighed Billy, despairingly. “You're an old dear, of course, and one just can't be cross with you; but you don't, you just _don't_ realize your Immense Responsibility.” “Oh, yes, I do,” maintained Bertram so seriously that even Billy herself almost believed him. In spite of his assertions, however, it must be confessed that Bertram was much more inclined to regard the new member of his family as just his son rather than as an Important Trust; and there is little doubt that he liked to toss him in the air and hear his gleeful crows of delight, without any bother of Observing him at all. As to the Life and Character and Destiny intrusted to his care, it is to be feared that Bertram just plain gloried in his son, poked him in the ribs, and chuckled him under the chin whenever he pleased, and gave never so much as a thought to Character and Destiny. It is to be feared, too, that he was Proud without being Humble, and that the only Opportunity he really appreciated was the chance to show off his wife and baby to some less fortunate fellow-man. But not so Billy. Billy joined a Mothers' Club and entered a class in Child Training with an elaborate system of Charts, Rules, and Tests. She subscribed to each new “Mothers' Helper,” and the like, that she came across, devouring each and every one with an eagerness that was tempered only by a vague uneasiness at finding so many differences of opinion among Those Who Knew. Undeniably Billy, if not Bertram, was indeed realizing the Enormous Responsibility, and was keeping ever before her the Important Trust. In June Bertram took a cottage at the South Shore, and by the time the really hot weather arrived the family were well settled. It was only an hour away from Boston, and easy of access, but William said he guessed he would not go; he would stay in Boston, sleeping at the house, and getting his meals at the club, until the middle of July, when he was going down in Maine for his usual fishing trip, which he had planned to take a little earlier than usual this year. “But you'll be so lonesome, Uncle William,” Billy demurred, “in this great house all alone!” “Oh, no, I sha'n't,” rejoined Uncle William. “I shall only be sleeping here, you know,” he finished, with a slightly peculiar smile. It was well, perhaps, that Billy did not exactly realize the significance of that smile, nor the unconscious emphasis on the word “sleeping,” for it would have troubled her not a little. William, to tell the truth, was quite anticipating that sleeping. William's nights had not been exactly restful since the baby came. His evenings, too, had not been the peaceful things they were wont to be.