oration in proper trim to
be adored. Yes, just be still until I copy these directions in this
little, red leather blank-book for you, and every day I want you to keep
an exact record of the conditions of which I make note. No, don't talk
while I make out these diet lists! I wish you would go across the hall
and see if you don't think we ought to get Bill a thinner set of
night-drawers. It seems to me he must be too warm in the ones he is
wearing."

When he speaks to me in that tone of voice I always do it. And I needed
Billy badly at that very moment. I took him out of his little cot by
Doctor John's big bed and sat down with him in my arms over by the
window through which the early moon came streaming. Billy is so little,
little not to have a mother to rock him all the times he needs it that I
take every opportunity to give it to him I find--when he's unconscious
and can't help himself. She died before she ever even saw him and I've
always tried to do what I could to make it up to him.

Poor Mr. Carter said when Billy cut his teeth that a neighbor's baby can
be worse than twins of your own. He didn't like children and the baby's
crying disturbed him, so many a night I walked Billy out in the garden
until daylight, while Mr. Carter and Doctor John both slept. Always his
little, warm, wilty body has comforted me for the emptiness of not
having a baby of my own. And he's very congenial, too, for he's slim and
flowery, pink and dimply, and as mannish as his father, in funny little
flashes.

"Git a stick to punch it, Molly," he was murmuring in his sleep. Then I
heard the doctor call me and I had to kiss him, put him back in his bed,
and go across the hall.

Doctor John was standing by the table with this horrid small book in his
hand and his mouth was set in a straight line and his eyes were deep
back under their brows. I hate him that way, too, and I would like to
get up so close to him that he couldn't _hit_ me or have a door
locked between us. It's strange how the thought of taking a beating from
a man can make a woman's heart jump. Mine jumped so it was hard to look
as meek as I felt best under the circumstances; but I looked it out from
under my lashes cautiously.

"There you are, Mrs. Molly," he said briskly as he handed me this book.
"Get weighed and measured and sized-up generally in the morning and
follow all the directions. Also make every record I have noted so that
I can have the proper data to help you a