y paper, tied by family hands with family string. He grasped
immediately the situation. The shoppy parcel was bought with mother's
money and only "pretended" to be from his sisters; the two small parcels
were the very handiwork of the ladies themselves, the same having been
seen by all eyes at work for the last six months, sometimes, indeed,
under the cloak of attempted secrecy, but more often--because weariness
or ill-temper made them careless--in the full light of day.

His interest was centred almost entirely in the "shoppy" parcel, which
by its shape might be "soldiers"; but he knew the rules of the game,
and disregarding the large, ostentatious brown-papered thing, he went
magnificently for the two small incoherent bundles.

He opened them. A flat green table-centre with a red pattern of roses, a
thick table-napkin ring worked in yellow worsted, these were revealed.

"Oh!" he cried, "just what I wanted." (Father always said that on his
birthday.)

"Is it?" said Mary and Helen.

"Mine's the ring," said Mary. "It's dirty rather, but it would have
got dirty, anyway, afterwards." She watched anxiously to see whether he
preferred Helen's.

He watched them nervously, lest he should be expected to kiss them. He
wiped his mouth with his hand instead, and began rapidly to talk:

"Jampot will know now which mine is. She's always giving me the wrong
one. I'll have it always, and the green thing too."

"It's for the middle of a table," Helen interrupted.

"Yes, I know," said Jeremy hurriedly. "I'll always have it too--like
Mary's--when I'm grown up and all.... I say, shall I open the other one
now?"

"Yes, you can," said Helen and Mary, ceasing to take the central place
in the ceremony, spectators now and eagerly excited.

But Mary had a last word.

"You do like mine, don't you?"

"Of course, like anything."

She wanted to say "Better than Helen's?" but restrained herself.

"I was ever so long doing it; I thought I wouldn't finish it in time."

He saw with terror that she meditated a descent upon him; a kiss was in
the air. She moved forward; then, to his extreme relief, the door opened
and the elders arriving saved him.

There were Father and Mother, Uncle Samuel and Aunt Amy, all with
presents, faces of birthday tolerance and "do-as-you-please-to-day,
dear" expressions.

The Rev. Herbert Cole was forty years of age, rector of St. James's,
Polchester, during the last ten years, and marked out for greater