the object of their eager conversations. The whole thing was most
agreeable to her sense of vanity, and when she suddenly appeared round a
corner and perceived that work was put out of sight, that the eager
whisperers started apart, and that the girls looked conscious and as if
they wished her out of the way, she quite congratulated herself on the
fact that hers was the first birthday in the immediate future, and that
on that day she would be a very great personage indeed. As these thoughts
came to her she walked with a more confident stride, and thought a great
deal of her own importance. At night she lay awake thinking of the happy
time, and wondering what this coming birthday, when she would have been
fourteen whole years in the world, would bring forth.

There came a lovely morning about a week before the birthday. Pauline had
got up early, and was walking by herself in the garden. She felt terribly
excited, and almost cross at having to wait so long for her pleasure.

"After all," thought Pauline, "Aunt Sophia has done something for us. How
horrid it would be to go back to the old shilling birthdays now!"

As she thought these thoughts, Patty and Josephine, arm-in-arm and
talking in low tones, crossed her path. They did not see her at first,
and their words reached Pauline's ears.

"I know she'd rather have pink than blue," said Patty's voice.

"Well, mine will be trimmed with blue," was Josephine's answer.

Just then the girls caught sight of Pauline, uttered shrieks, and
disappeared down a shady walk.

"Something with pink and something with blue," thought Pauline. "The
excitement is almost past bearing. Of course, they're talking about my
birthday presents. I do wish my birthday was to-morrow. I don't know how
I shall exist for a whole week."

At that moment Miss Tredgold's sharp voice fell on her ears:

"You are late, Pauline. I must give you a bad mark for want of
punctuality, Go at once into the schoolroom."

To hear these incisive, sharp tones in the midst of her own delightful
reflections was anything but agreeable to Pauline. She felt, as she
expressed it, like a cat rubbed the wrong way. She gave Miss Tredgold one
of her most ungracious scowls and went slowly into the house. There she
lingered purposely before she condescended to tidy her hair and put on
her house-shoes. In consequence she was quite a quarter of an hour late
when she appeared in the schoolroom. Miss Tredgold had just finished
m