guardian angel has heard it, and perchance it has
reached the very gate of heaven.

Nan came down, smiling and radiant, to find Dick waiting for her in
the veranda and chattering to Phillis and Dulce.

"Why, Dick!" she cried, blushing with surprise and pleasure, "to think
of your being here on your birthday morning!"

"I only came to thank you and the girls for your lovely presents,"
returned Dick, becoming rather incoherent and red at the sight of
Nan's blush. "It was so awfully good of you all, to work all those
things for me;" for Nan had taken secret measurements in Dick's room,
and had embroidered a most exquisite mantelpiece valance, and Phillis
and Dulce had worked the corners of a green cloth with wonderful
daffodils and bulrushes to cover Dick's shabby table: and Dick's soul
had been filled with ravishment at the sight of these gifts.

Nan would not let him go on, but all the same his happy face delighted
her.

"No, don't thank us, we liked doing it," she returned, rather coolly.
"You know we owed you something after all your splendid hospitality,
and work is never any trouble to us."

"But I never saw anything I liked better," blurted out Dick. "All the
fellows will be jealous of me. I am sure I don't know what Hamilton
will say. It was awfully good of you, Nan, and so it was of the
others: and if I don't make it up to you somehow, my name is not
Dick:" and he smiled round at them as he spoke. "Fancy putting in all
those stitches for me!" he thought to himself.

"We are so glad you are pleased," returned Nan, with one of her sweet,
straightforward looks; "that is what we wanted to give you,--a little
surprise on your birthday. Now you must tell us about your other
presents." And Dick, nothing loath, launched into eloquent
descriptions of the silver-fitted dressing-case from his mother, and
the gun and thorough-bred collie that had been his father's gifts.

"He is such a fine fellow; I must show him to you this afternoon,"
went on Dick, eagerly. "His name is Vigo, and he has such a superb
head. Was it not good of the pater? he knew I had a fancy for a
collie, and he has been in treaty for one ever so long. Is he not a
dear old boy?" cried Dick, rapturously. But he did not tell his
friends of the crisp bundle of bank-notes with which Mr. Mayne had
enriched his son; only as Dick fingered them lovingly, he wondered
what pretty foreign thing he could buy for Nan, and whether her mother
would allow her to