occasion. The oak doors which divided the schoolroom from the grown-up
portion of the building were thrown open, and happy rioters might have
been seen darting about in all directions. In short, during this day
Chaos reigned instead of order. Each child did as he or she liked
best, with a reckless disregard to all future consequences.

In preparation for the feasting which went on during father's
birthday, nurse was wont to see that all the useful unpleasant nursery
bottles were well filled. She sent them to the chemist a week before,
and when they were returned, put them grimly away in the cupboard.

"These," she would remark, "have nothing to do with father's birthday,
but they come in handy the day after."

Miss Nelson also made preparations for the after effects of this day
of unrestraint. She laid in a good store of clean manuscript paper,
for she knew many impositions would have to be written, and she looked
well through the poetry books and books of French selections, to see
which on an emergency would be suited to the capacities of the
delinquents, who would be certain to have to learn them amidst tears
and disgrace.

The children's maid, too, laid in stores of buttons and hooks, and
tapes and ribbons, for the repairing of the clothes which must come to
grief in the general riot.

Thus all that the careful elders could do was done, but the children
cared for none of these things. To the children the day itself stood
before them in all its glory, and they gave no thought or heed to any
after-time of reckoning.

Mr. Wilton's birthday arrived in the beginning of the second week of
the summer holidays. The first exuberance of joy, therefore, at having
the boys at home again, was past, and all the young folk could give
themselves up to the ecstasy which the day itself afforded.

"Good-by, Roderick," said Miss Elizabeth Wilton to her brother. She
came in in her neat traveling-dress, and surprised him over a late
breakfast.

"Why, where are you off to?" he asked.

"Where am I off to? I'm going to town, of course."

"To town, in August! What do you mean, Lizzie?"

"You may well shrug your shoulders, and ask me what I mean. _You_,
Roderick, are the cause. Your birthday comes to-morrow."

"Good gracious! And I had forgotten all about it."

"Well, the children remember it, and so do I. Good-by, Roderick. I'll
be home again on Friday evening. I don't want to stay longer in that
stifling London than I can h