Shadow Tail, his brother. Daddy
Fox would like to have been there, only Uncle Lucky hadn't sent him an
invitation. The only friend who wasn't there was Uncle Bullfrog. He
couldn't leave his log in the Old Mill Pond, so he sent his regrets by
little Mrs. Oriole, who lived in the willow tree by the Old Mill.

"Now we'll cut the cake," said kind Uncle Lucky, and he went over to
the Luckymobile to get the big carving knife which he had hidden under
the cushions.

"There's a little gold ring hidden away somewhere," he said as he cut
the cake very carefully so as not to topple over the pretty candles
and get the pink and green melted wax all over the white frosting.

And then everybody ate up his piece of cake as fast as he could to
find the little gold ring. "I've got it! I've got it!" screamed Timmy
Chipmunk. But, oh, dear me. It wasn't the ring at all. It was only a
hard nut.

And the little chipmunk was so disappointed that he ran home to tell
his mother all about it, and she gave him one she had found when she
was a little girl in the toe of her stocking one happy Christmas
morning. And in the next story you'll be surprised to hear who got the
ring after all.

STORY XXXII.

BILLY BUNNY AND THE LOST RING.

Something's going to happen;
I feel it in the air.
But what it is you soon shall know,
So hold your breath and stare.

You remember in the last story I told you about Billy Bunny's birthday
party and promised to tell you who found the little gold ring in the
frosted cake.

Well, just as the little rabbit said, "I've found it!" Daddy Fox
sprang from behind a bush and grabbed the piece of cake right out of
the little rabbit's paw.

And then he jumped over the Luckymobile and ran off to his den to give
it to Slyboots or Bushy Tail, his two little sons, you know, but which
one got it I can't remember, for everybody was so excited that they
forgot to ask the naughty old fox before he got away.

"That's too bad," said kind Uncle Lucky; "I'll have to get you another
one," so he said good-by to everybody and took Billy Bunny down to the
3 and 10 cents store, where they bought a lovely gold ring with a big
ruby in it. Wasn't that nice?

And then they came back to the woods, but everybody had gone home and
there was no more birthday cake anywhere to be seen, not even a little
piece of candle.

"Well, what shall we do now?" said the kind old gentleman rabbit, and
he poured some lett