for the final
checkmate.

By the middle of June the baby was well enough to be taken to the
beach, and Bertram was so fortunate as to secure the same house they had
occupied before. Once again William went down in Maine for his fishing
trip, and the Strata was closed. In the beach house Bertram was painting
industriously--with his left hand. Almost he was beginning to feel
Billy's enthusiasm. Almost he was believing that he _was_ doing good
work. It was not the "Face of a Girl," now. It was the face of a baby:
smiling, laughing, even crying, sometimes; at other times just gazing
straight into your eyes with adorable soberness. Bertram still went
into Boston twice a week for treatment, though the treatment itself had
changed. The great surgeon had sent him to still another specialist.

"There's a chance--though perhaps a small one," he had said. "I'd like
you to try it, anyway."

As the summer advanced, Bertram thought sometimes that he could see a
slight improvement in his injured arm; but he tried not to think too
much about this. He had thought the same thing before, only to be
disappointed in the end. Besides, he was undeniably interested just now
in seeing if he _could_ paint with his left hand. Billy was so sure,
and she had said that she would be prouder than ever of him, if he
could--and he would like to make Billy proud! Then, too, there was the
baby--he had no idea a baby could be so interesting to paint. He was not
sure but that he was going to like to paint babies even better than he
had liked to paint his "Face of a Girl" that had brought him his first
fame.

In September the family returned to the Strata. The move was made a
little earlier this year on account of Alice Greggory's wedding.

Alice was to be married in the pretty living-room at the Annex, just
where Billy herself had been married a few short years before; and Billy
had great plans for the wedding--not all of which she was able to carry
out, for Alice, like Marie before her, had very strong objections to
being placed under too great obligations.

"And you see, really, anyway," she told Billy, "I owe the whole thing to
you, to begin with--even my husband."

"Nonsense! Of course you don't," disputed Billy.

"But I do. If it hadn't been for you I should never have found him
again, and of _course_ I shouldn't have had this dear little home to be
married in. And I never could have left mother if she hadn't had
Aunt Hannah and the Annex whi