And although 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 well!" answered Willie; "she never cried once." "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.