make yourself a nice bed on the
floor. And then you sneezed! What shall I do with you? I can't take
you to the kitchen in the middle of the night. You'll have to cuddle
down with me; you're beautifully warm at any rate. Here, come inside,
you'll be as good as a hot bottle." And, clasping the purring cat
close in her arms, she was soon back in the land of dreams.

It was quite a little adventure to relate to Linda next morning, and
the latter wondered how she had been able to sleep so stolidly through
it.

"You always say I shouldn't hear either a burglar or an earthquake,"
she declared, "and Toby was very nearly as bad. You naughty, precious
puss! What do you mean by coming and scaring my Sylvia? There, you
didn't do it on purpose, did you? Come into my bed for a minute before
I get up. You're the sweetest, softest darling that ever was."

Sylvia's birthday was on the nineteenth of November, and to her great
delight it happened this year on a Saturday. Miss Kaye, who tried to
make school seem as much like home as possible, was indulgent
regarding such anniversaries, and permitted many small privileges to
the fortunate owner of a birthday. Sylvia was allowed to choose the
dinner, an important decision, over which she lingered so long that
the mistress nearly lost patience.

"Of course you must not order turkey and ice cream," said Miss Kaye;
"it must be two of our ordinary dishes, only you may have which you
like. Be quick, for Cook is waiting to know."

After some hesitation Sylvia decided on hotpot and fig pudding.

"I like the potatoes on the top of the hotpot," she explained to
Linda, "especially when they're crisp and brown, and the fig pudding
always has delicious sweet sauce, and Miss Kaye lets one take plenty
of sugar with it. Jessie Ellis chose boiled mutton and corn-flour
blancmange with jam on her birthday. I don't think that was nice at
all."

The girls in her class subscribed, and gave Sylvia a birthday book as
their joint present, containing poetical quotations from Shakespeare
for each day, and one or two pretty illustrations of Perdita, Portia,
and other heroines. She was charmed with such a remembrance and asked
them all to write their names in it.

"We chose a fawn cover," said Nina, "because topaz is the birthday
stone for November. Marian wanted a green one, but I said that
wouldn't do. It's a funny thing, but people always say your month
stone matches your eyes. I never can quite decide whe