"Because you may be called up any moment, and have no more sleep till
next night; and it is not fair that what sleep your work does let you
have should be so unnecessarily broken. It's not as if I couldn't manage
without you."

"But Willie's bed is not big enough for both of us," he objected.

"Then Willie can come and sleep with me."

"But Willie wants his sleep as much as I do mine."

"There's no fear of him: he would sleep though all the babies in Priory
Leas were crying in the room."

"Would I really?" thought Willie, feeling rather ashamed of himself.

"But who will get up and warm the milk-and-water for you?" pursued his
father.

"Oh! I can manage that quite well."

"Couldn't I do that, mamma?" said Willie, very humbly, for he thought of
what his mother had said about his sleeping powers.

"No, my pet," she answered; and he said no more.

"It seems to me," said his father, "a very clumsy necessity. I have been
thinking over it. To keep a fire in all night only to warm such a tiny
drop of water as she wants, I must say, seems like using a steam-engine
to sweep up the crumbs. If you would just get a stone bottle, fill