"This is Master Pliny Hastings Mallery at your service," responded Theodore, tossing his boy aloft until he tried to reach the ceiling and yelled with glee. While Winny, after glancing at her husband's face and noting his moved look, answered simply: "We call ours Baby Ben."
After Dr. and Mrs. Birge, and he who called himself Grandfather Stephens, had departed, they went, these two fathers, to the room above, where the babies cuddled and slept, and the loving mothers watched and talked. They all went over and stood by the crib and the easy chair.
"Let us have a special celebration of this day," said Theodore. "Let us consecrate these two boys anew to the beloved Giver of all our blessedness."
Then they all knelt down, each husband encircling with one arm the form of his honored wife, and resting the other hand on the forehead of his darling, and Theodore first, then Pliny, laid their hearts' dearest treasures at the feet of their common Lord.
"We are very happy," Dora said, when they had risen, still clinging to her husband's hand.
"Very happy," answered Theodore, clasping tenderly the dear true hand. "And it is a happiness that will continue whatever comes, so we remain always at the feet of the Master and keep our treasures there."
Pliny was looking at the babies, with a face full of humble tenderness.
"We have quite given them up to Him," he said, in an earnest, solemn tone. "Now let us pray that he will consecrate them peculiarly to the sacred cause of temperance."
And Theodore and the two mothers said: "Amen."