wasting my precious
time and running the risk of sunstroke."

Miss Tredgold nodded and laughed. Adelaide appeared with the coffee. Mr.
Dale drank it off at a single draught. Pauline ran into the house with
the treasure which was hers and yet not hers. For surely never during his
lifetime would Mr. Dale allow that special edition of Cicero out of his
study. She put it gravely and quietly into its accustomed place, kissed
her father, told him she appreciated his present beyond words, and then
went back to her sisters and aunt, who were waiting for her.

What a day it was! What a wonderful, magnificent day! The weather was
perfect; the air was sweet; the garden was full of perfume. And then the
presents. Every imaginable thing that a little girl could want was poured
at the feet of the birthday queen. The story-books she had longed for;
the little writing-desk she had always coveted but never possessed; the
workbox with its reels of colored silks, its matchless pair of scissors,
its silver thimble, its odds and ends of every sort and description; the
tennis-bat; the hockey-club; the new saddle that would exactly fit
Peas-blossom: all these things and many more were given to Pauline. But
besides the richer and more handsome presents, there were the sort of
pretty things that only love could devise--that charming little
pin-cushion for her dressing-table; that pen-wiper; that bag for her
brush and comb; that case for her night-dress. Some of the gifts were
clumsy, but all were prompted by love. Love had begun them, and gone on
with them, and finished them, and Pauline laughed and had brighter eyes
and more flushed cheeks each moment as the day progressed.

After breakfast Miss Tredgold took her nieces for a drive. The little
party were all packed into the wagonette, and then they went off. They
drove for miles and miles under the trees of the Forest. Miss Tredgold
told more interesting and fascinating stories of her own life than she
had ever told before. The girls listened to her with the most absorbed
attention. As a rule Miss Tredgold's stories carried a moral with them;
but the birthday stories had no moral. Pauline waited for one. She waited
with a sort of trembling dread. She expected it to intrude its sober face
at each moment, but it did not put in an appearance anywhere. It stayed
out of sight in the most delightful and graceful manner. Soon the girls,
Pauline amongst them, forgot to look out for the moral. Then V