if you don't think we ought to get Billy a thinner set of nightgowns.
It seems to me he must be too warm in the ones he is wearing."

When he speaks to me in that tone of voice I always do it. And I needed
Billy badly at that very moment. I took him out of his little cot by
Dr. John's big bed and sat down with him in my arms over by the window,
through which the early moon came streaming. Billy is so little, so very
little not to have a mother to rock him all the times he needs it, that
I take every opportunity to give it to him I find--when he's unconscious
and can't help himself. She died before she ever even saw him, and I've
always tried to do what I could to make it up to him.

Poor Mr. Carter said when Billy cut his teeth that a neighbour's baby
can be worse than your own. He didn't like children, and the baby's
crying disturbed him, so many a night I walked Billy out in the garden
until daylight, while Mr. Carter and Dr. John both slept. Always his
little, warm, wilty body has comforted me for the emptiness of not
having a little one of my own. And he's very congenial, too, for he's
slim and flowery, pink and dimply, and as mannish as his father, in
funny little flashes.

"Git a stick to punch it, Molly," he was murmuring in his sleep. Then I
heard the doctor call me and I had to kiss him, put him back in his bed,
and go downstairs.

Dr. John was standing by the table with this horrid small book in his
hand, and his mouth was set in a straight line and his eyes were deep
back under their brows. I don't like him that way, yet my heart jumped
so it was hard to look as meek as I felt it best under the
circumstances; but I looked out from under my lashes cautiously.