"O Willie!" said his mother, laughing, "she screamed for a whole hour,
and was so hungry after it that she emptied her bottle without stopping
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 breakfast, 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 thinking;
then for advice betook himself to Mrs Wilson, who gave him her full
attention, and suggested several things, none of which, however, seemed
to him likely to succeed.

"If I could but go to bed after mamma was asleep," he said, "I could tie
a string to my hair, and then slip a loop at the other end over mamma's
wrist, so that when she sat up to attend to Agnes, she would pull my
hair and wake me. Wouldn't she wonder what it was when she felt it
pulling _her_?"

He had to go home without any help from Mrs Wilson. All the way he kept
thinking with himself something after this fashion--

"Mamma won't wake me, and Agnes can't; and the worst of it is that
everybody else will be just as fast asleep as I shall be. Let me
see--who _is_ there that's awake all night? There's the cat: I think
she is, but then she wouldn't know when to wake me, and even if I could
teach her to wake me the moment Agnes cried, I don't think she would
be a nice one to do it; for if I didn't come awake with a pat of her
velvety pin-cushions, she might turn out the points of the pins in them,
and scratch me awake. There's the clock; it's always awake; but it can't