r thought of marrying me--and I'm not going to marry anybody but my
music."

Billy sighed despairingly.

"I know that's what you say now; but if--" She stopped abruptly. Around
the turn of the veranda had appeared Aunt Hannah, wheeling Bertram, Jr.,
still asleep in his carriage.

"I came out the other door," she explained softly. "And it was so lovely
I just had to go in and get the baby. I thought it would be so nice for
him to finish his nap out here."

Billy arose with a troubled frown.

"But, Aunt Hannah, he mustn't--he can't stay out here. I'm sorry, but
we'll have to take him back."

Aunt Hannah's eyes grew mutinous.

"But I thought the outdoor air was just the thing for him. I'm sure your
scientific hygienic nonsense says _that!_"

"They do--they did--that is, some of them do," acknowledged Billy,
worriedly; "but they differ, so! And the one I'm going by now says that
Baby should always sleep in an _even_ temperature--seventy degrees, if
possible; and that's exactly what the room in there was, when I left
him. It's not the same out here, I'm sure. In fact I looked at the
thermometer to see, just before I came out myself. So, Aunt Hannah, I'm
afraid I'll have to take him back."

"But you used to have him sleep out of doors all the time, on that
little balcony out of your room," argued Aunt Hannah, still plainly
unconvinced.

"Yes, I know I did. I was following the other man's rules, then. As I
said, if only they wouldn't differ so! Of course I want the best; but
it's so hard to always know the best, and--"

At this very inopportune moment Master Bertram took occasion to wake
up, which brought even a deeper wrinkle of worry to his fond mother's
forehead; for she said that, according to the clock, he should have been
sleeping exactly ten and one-half more minutes, and that of course he
couldn't commence the next thing until those ten and one-half minutes
were up, or else his entire schedule for the day would be shattered.
So what she should do with him for those should-have-been-sleeping ten
minutes and a half, she did not know. All of which drew from Aunt Hannah
the astounding exclamation of:

"Oh, my grief and conscience, Billy, if you aren't the--the limit!"
Which, indeed, she must have been, to have brought circumspect Aunt
Hannah to the point of actually using slang.

CHAPTER XXIV. A NIGHT OFF

The Henshaw family did not return to the Strata until late in September.
Billy said that th