-lodge. It was got for my Emmie's first,
that didn't live but six months, and she never had but that one. I'd
like Mrs. Perks to have it. It 'ud be a help to her with that great boy
of hers. Will you take it along?"

"OH!" said all the children together.

When Mrs. Ransome had got out the perambulator and taken off the careful
papers that covered it, and dusted it all over, she said:--

"Well, there it is. I don't know but what I'd have given it to her
before if I'd thought of it. Only I didn't quite know if she'd accept of
it from me. You tell her it was my Emmie's little one's pram--"

"Oh, ISN'T it nice to think there is going to be a real live baby in it
again!"

"Yes," said Mrs. Ransome, sighing, and then laughing; "here, I'll give
you some peppermint cushions for the little ones, and then you run along
before I give you the roof off my head and the clothes off my back."

All the things that had been collected for Perks were packed into
the perambulator, and at half-past three Peter and Bobbie and Phyllis
wheeled it down to the little yellow house where Perks lived.

The house was very tidy. On the window ledge was a jug of wild-flowers,
big daisies, and red sorrel, and feathery, flowery grasses.

There was a sound of splashing from the wash-house, and a partly washed
boy put his head round the door.

"Mother's a-changing of herself," he said.

"Down in a minute," a voice sounded down the narrow, freshly scrubbed
stairs.

The children waited. Next moment the stairs creaked and Mrs. Perks came
down, buttoning her bodice. Her hair was brushed very smooth and tight,
and her face shone with soap and water.

"I'm a bit late changing, Miss," she said to Bobbie, "owing to me having
had a extry clean-up to-day, along o' Perks happening to name its being
his birthday. I don't know what put it into his head to think of such
a thing. We keeps the children's birthdays, of course; but him and
me--we're too old for such like, as a general rule."

"We knew it was his birthday," said Peter, "and we've got some presents
for him outside in the perambulator."

As the presents were being unpacked, Mrs. Perks gasped. When they
were all unpacked, she surprised and horrified the children by sitting
suddenly down on a wooden chair and bursting into tears.

"Oh, don't!" said everybody; "oh, please don't!" And Peter added,
perhaps a little impatiently: "What on earth is the matter? You don't
mean to say you don't like it?"