Fle Serves an Apprenticeship. 31

 

as Agnes should begin to cry, and finding out what
hecould 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 al-
though 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 welll” answered Willie; “she never cried
once.”

“Q Willie!” said his mother, laughing, “she
screamed for a whole hour, and was so hungry
after it that she emptied her bottle without stop-
ping 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 break-
fast, 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