e nice things a person _might_ do for a
birthday, but long before they could decide which was the very nicest of
all the plans, bedtime came. Then the next morning there were interesting
things to do, and nobody thought about plans for a day that was two weeks
away. That is, nobody but Mary Jane thought about it, and, if the truth
must be told, she thought more about the doll cart she had wished for than
she did about what she might do to celebrate.

Monday noon, when Alice came home for her luncheon, she was much excited.

"Who do you s'pose I saw at recess this morning?" she demanded. "Guess!"

But Mrs. Merrill and Mary Jane couldn't guess--they didn't know anybody in
Chicago to guess! Or at least they thought they didn't.

"I saw--" began Alice slowly, for she wanted the fun of keeping them
waiting to last as long as possible, "I saw--Frances Westland! And she
goes to my school!"

"Why in the world didn't we know that?" said Mrs. Merrill. "We should have
guessed! Of course she goes to your school. I remember of thinking she
wasn't very far from us."

"Can't we have her come to see us?" asked Mary Jane eagerly.

"I already asked her if she couldn't come," explained Alice, "because I
knew you'd want me to, and she says she's sure she can. But she can't come
next Saturday because she and her auntie are going to Milwaukee to spend
the week-end. But she thought she could come the next Saturday."

"And that's my birthday," Mary Jane reminded her.

"I know it," agreed Alice, "but I didn't tell her. I just said I'd find
out what we were doing that day and let her know this afternoon--was that
all right, Mother?"

"You did exactly right, dear," said Mrs. Merrill reassuringly. "Come right
out to the dining-room now, because your soup is ready and you mustn't
hurry yourself too much with your lunch. While we eat, we'll plan for the
birthday."

Of course there were many plans to be talked of, because in a big city
there are so many kinds of things one may do. And it was awfully hard to
decide which plan was the very most fun--you know how that is yourself.
But after every plan that any of the three could think of had been
discussed carefully, Mary Jane decided that there were two things she
wanted the most to do. First, she wanted to stay home to celebrate and
have a party and all that; and, second, she wanted to go down town and go
to a big grown-up theater where there was music and lights and pretty
things just lik