its of fairyland dropped
into the blue water.

[Illustration: "Haymaking"]

And then! crown of delights! came the haymaking. There were long fine
days, when the six small creatures--Milly, Olly, Becky, Tiza, Bessie,
and Charlie--followed John Backhouse and his men about in the hayfields
from early morning till evening, helping to make the hay, or simply
rolling about like a parcel of kittens in the flowery fragrant heaps.

Aunt Emma was often at Ravensnest, and the children learned to love her
better and better, so that even wild little Olly would remember to bring
her stool, and carry her shawl, and change her plate at dinner; and
Milly, who was always clinging to somebody, was constantly puzzled to
know whose pocket to sit in, mother's or Aunt Emma's.

Then there was the farmyard, the cows, and the milking, and the
chickens. Everything about them seemed delightful to Milly and Olly, and
the top of everything was reached when one evening John Backhouse
mounted both the children on his big carthorse Dobbin, and they and
Dobbin together dragged the hay home in triumph.

And now they had only one week more to stay at Ravensnest. But that week
was a most important week, for it was to contain no less a day than
Milly's birthday. Milly would be seven years old on the 15th of July,
and for about a week before the 15th, Milly's little head could think of
nothing else. Olly too was very much excited about it, for though Milly
of course was the queen of the day, and all the presents were for her,
not for him, still it was good times for everybody on Milly's birthday;
besides which, he had his own little secret with mother about his
present to Milly, a secret which made him very happy, but which he was
on the point of telling at least a hundred times a day.

"Father," said Milly, about four days before the birthday, when they
were all wandering about after tea one evening in the high garden which
was now a paradise of ripe red strawberries and fruit of every kind,
"does everybody have birthdays? Do policemen have birthdays?"

"I expect so, Milly," said Mr. Norton, laughing, "but they haven't any
time to remember them."

"But, father, what's the good of having birthdays if you don't keep
them, and have presents and all that? And do cats and dogs have
birthdays? I should like to find out Spot's birthday. We'd give her
cream instead of milk, you know, and I'd tie a blue ribbon round her
neck, and one round her tail like the