ow
much more you can do with your left hand now? You've _had_ to use it,
you see. _I've_ seen you do a lot of things with it, lately, that you
never used to do at all. And, of course, the more you do with it, the
more you can!"

"I know; but that doesn't mean that I can paint with it," sighed
Bertram, ruefully eyeing the tiny bit of fresh color his canvas showed
for his long afternoon's work.

"You wait and see," nodded Billy, with so overwhelming a cheery
confidence that Bertram, looking into her glowing face, was conscious
of a curious throb of exultation, almost as if already the victory were
his.

But it was not always of Bertram's broken arm, nor even of his work that
they talked. Bertram, hanging over the baby's crib to assure himself
that the rosiness and the sparkle were really growing more apparent
every day, used to wonder sometimes how ever in the world he could have
been jealous of his son. He said as much one day to Billy.

To Billy it was a most astounding idea.

"You mean you were actually jealous of your own baby?" she gasped.
"Why, Bertram, how could--And was that why you--you sought distraction
and--Oh, but, Bertram, that was all my f-fault," she quavered
remorsefully. "I wouldn't play, nor sing, nor go to walk, nor anything;
and I wore horrid frowzy wrappers all the time, and--"

"Oh, come, come, Billy," expostulated the man. "I'm not going to have
you talk like that about _my wife!_"

"But I did--the book said I did," wailed Billy.

"The book? Good heavens! Are there any books in this, too?" demanded
Bertram.

"Yes, the same one; the--the 'Talks to Young Wives,'" nodded Billy.
And then, because some things had grown small to them, and some others
great, they both laughed happily.

But even this was not quite all; for one evening, very shyly, Billy
brought out the chessboard.

"Of course I can't play well," she faltered; "and maybe you don't want
to play with me at all."

But Bertram, when he found out why she had learned, was very sure he did
want very much to play with her.

Billy did not beat, of course. But she did several times experience--for
a few blissful minutes--the pleasure of seeing Bertram sit motionless,
studying the board, because of a move she had made. And though, in the
end, her king was ignominiously trapped with not an unguarded square
upon which to set his poor distracted foot, the memory of those blissful
minutes when she had made Bertram "stare" more than paid