last words with Mary.

"You'll come early to-morrow afternoon, won't you?" he said, "because I
want to show you my presents before the others come. I know what two of
'em are going to be. Jolly! Something _you'll_ like as well."

Jackie cut a high caper of delight as he spoke, in spite of its being
Sunday and Fraulein quite near. His pleasure in anything was always
doubled if Mary could share it. That was so nice of Jackie. It made it
all the more distressing at that moment to remember that she could give
him no present to-morrow, besides the mortification of appearing mean
and stingy to the other children. She began to think that it would be
almost better to give up going to his birthday party. But what excuse
could she make? Then another idea came to her. Was there anything
among her own possessions that he would like to have? She ran them over
in her mind. Books? Jackie hated books; it was only under strong
pressure that he would ever open one, and she could not pretend to be
ignorant of this. If only Jackie were a girl! Then she could give him
her work-box, which was nearly new, or a doll, or a set of tea-things,
but it was no use to think of that. Still pondering the matter she went
upstairs into her own little room, and the moment she entered her eye
fell on the little clog standing in the middle of the mantel-piece. The
very thing! Jackie had often and often admired it, and though everyone
would know that she had not spent any money in getting it, still it
would be much much better than having nothing at all to give. She took
it off the mantel-piece and polished it up with her pocket-handkerchief.
Dear little clog, she would be sorry to part with it, and it would
leave a great gap among the other ornaments, but still it must go--after
all it would not go far, only to the White House. Thinking thus, and
rubbing it meanwhile, she noticed for the first time that there were two
letters faintly scratched on the wooden sole, "BM." Who was BM?
"Perhaps that's my name," she thought; "but I don't want to know it if
it is. I'd rather be Mary Vallance." And then the dark faces of Perrin
and Seraminta came before her and she frowned. How hateful it was to
belong to them! She, Mary Vallance, who had always been so proud and
delicate in her ways, so vain of her white skin, and so sure, only the
other day, that her people were rich and great. That was all over now;
even Rice could not call her "Tossy"