they expected to see to it. You'd like to boss everything and
everybody on the place, Frances."

"I'll boss you with this mop, little man, if you give me any sauce,"
said Frances, with massive calm. "Go away now and feed your beasts; it's
what you're best at."

"But you'll have the supper ready and all, Frances? If I can feed
beasts, you can feed their masters, I'm bound to own that," said Bannan,
presenting this transparent sop with an air of hopeful diffidence.

"Go 'long with ye!" said Frances, loftily, yet with a suggestion of
softening in her voice. "I've kep' Mr. John's birthday for twenty years,
but I reckon you'd better tell me how to do it this time."

"And you'll tell nobody about--them--"

But here Frances raised the mop with such a businesslike air that Bannan
took himself off, grumbling and shaking his head.

Left alone, Frances fell into a frenzy of preparation, and when Margaret
found her half an hour later, she was beating eggs, stoning raisins, and
creaming butter, apparently all at the same moment. An ardent
consultation followed. What flavor would Mr. John (Frances would never
say Mr. Montfort) like best for the ice-cream? and the cake--would a
caramel frosting be best, or a boiled frosting with candied fruits
chopped into it? and for the small cakes, now, and the tartlets?

Mr. Montfort's birthday came, as most birthdays do, once a year.
Considering this, it was a singular thing that he, the most methodical
of men, who turned his calendar as regularly as he wound his watch,
never seemed to remember it. He never failed to be astonished at
Margaret's morning greeting. More than this, he apparently forgot it as
soon as it was over, for he always had a fresh stock of astonishment on
hand for the health-imperilling feast that Frances was sure to arrange
for the evening. To-day he took no notice of the fact that wherever he
went he came upon some girl or boy carrying armfuls of flowers and
ferns, or arranging them in bowls, jars, and vases. When he found his
desk heaped with a tangle of clematis and wild lilies,--Peggy had
dropped them there "just for a minute," half an hour before,--this
excellent man merely said "Charming," and rescued his pet Montaigne from
the wet sprays which covered it. In the course of the morning, Fernley
House was transformed into a bower of greenery, lit up with masses of
splendid color. Everywhere drooped or nodded clusters of ferns, the
ostrich fern and the great Osmund