l. But I think
grandfathah might, or Mom Beck, or _somebody_. If there'd only been one
single person when I came down-stairs this mawnin' to say 'I wish you
many happy returns, Lloyd, deah,' I wouldn't feel so bad. But there
wasn't, and I nevah felt so misah'ble and lonesome and left out since I
was bawn."

Tarbaby had no words with which to comfort his little mistress, but he
seemed to understand that she was in trouble, and rubbed his nose lovingly
against her shoulder. The mute caress comforted her as much as words could
have done, and presently she climbed into the saddle and started slowly
down the avenue to the gate.

It was a warm May morning, sweet with the fragrance of the locusts, for
the great trees arching above her were all abloom, and the ground beneath
was snowy with the wind-blown petals. Under the long white arch she rode,
with the fallen blossoms white at her feet. The pewees called from the
cedars and the fat red-breasted robins ran across the lawn just as they
had done the spring before, when it was her eleventh birthday, and she had
ridden along that same way singing, the happiest hearted child in the
Valley. But she was not singing to-day. Another sob came up in her throat
as she thought of the difference.

"Now I'm a whole yeah oldah," she sighed. "Oh, deah! I don't want to grow
up, one bit, and I'll be suah 'nuff old on my next birthday, for I'll be
in my teens then. I wondah how that will feel. This last yeah was such a
lovely one, for it brought the house pahty and so many holidays. But this
yeah has begun all wrong. I can't help feelin' that it's goin' to bring me
lots of trouble."

Half-way down the avenue she thought she heard some one calling her, and
stopped to look back. But no one was in sight. The shutters were closed in
her mother's room.

"Last yeah she stood at the window and waved to me when I rode away,"
sighed the child, her eyes filling with tears again. "Now she's so white
and ill it makes me cry to look at her. Maybe that is the trouble this
yeah is goin' to bring me. Betty's mothah died, and Eugenia's, and
maybe"--but the thought was too dreadful to put into words, and she
stopped abruptly.

"Mom Beck was right," she whispered with a nod of her head. "She said that
sad thoughts are like crows. They come in flocks. I wish I could stop
thinkin' about such mou'nful things."

A train passed as she cantered through the gate and started down the road
beside the railroad tra