night: why should his mother have
too little sleep rather than himself? They might at least divide the too
little between them! So he went to bed early, full of the thought of
waking up as soon as Agnes should begin to cry, and finding out what
he could do. Already he had begun to be useful in the daytime, and had
twice put her to sleep when both his mother and Tibby had failed. And
although he quite understood that in all probability he would not have
succeeded if they hadn't tried first, yet it had been some relief to
them, and they had confessed it.

But when he woke, there lay his mother and his sister both sound asleep;
the sun was shining through the blind; he heard Tibby about the house;
and, in short, it was time to get up.

At breakfast, his father said to him--

"Well, Willie, how did Agnes behave herself last night?"

"So well!" answered Willie; "she never cried once."

"O Willie!" said his mother, laughing, "she screamed for a whole hour,
and was so hungry after it that she emptied her bottle without stopping
once. You were sound asleep all the time, and never stirred."

Willie was so much ashamed of himself, although he wasn't in the least
to blame, that he could hardly keep from crying. He did not say another
word, except when he was spoken to, all through breakfast, and his
father and mother were puzzled to think what could be the matter with
him: He went about the greater part of the morning moodily thinking;
then for advice betook himself to Mrs Wilson, who gave him her full
attention, and suggested several things, none of which, however, seemed
to him likely to succeed.

"If I could but go to bed after mamma was asleep," he said, "I could tie
a string to my hair, and then slip a loop at the other end over mamma's
wrist, so that when she sat up to attend to Agnes, she would pull my
hair and wake me. Wouldn't she wonder what it was when she felt it
pulling _her_?"

He had to go home without any help from Mrs Wilson. All the way he kept
thinking with himself something after this fashion--

"Mamma won't wake me, and Agnes can't; and the worst of it is that
everybody else will be just as fast asleep as I shall be. Let me
see--who _is_ there that's awake all night? There's the cat: I think
she is, but then she wouldn't know when to wake me, and even if I could
teach her to wake me the moment Agnes cried, I don't think she would
be a nice one to do it; for if I didn't come awake with a pat of her
v