e gazed at him enviously.

"You _are_ lucky! I expect you'll have a lovely supper--not rice
mould," bitterly.

"Rather!" said William with an air of superiority.

"What are you going to have to eat at your party?"

"Oh--everything," said William vaguely.

"Cream blanc-mange?"

"Heaps of it--_buckets_ of it."

The little girl next door clasped her hands.

"Oh, just think of it! Your eating cream blanc-mange and me
eating--_rice-mould_!" (It is impossible to convey in print the
intense scorn and hatred which the little girl next door could
compress into the two syllables.)

Here an idea struck William.

"What time do you have supper?"

"Seven."

"Well, now," magnanimously, "if you'll be in your summer-house at
half-past, I'll bring you some cream blanc-mange. Truly I will!"

The little girl's face beamed with pleasure.

"Will you? Will you _really_? You won't forget?"

"Not me! I'll be there. I'll slip away from our show on the quiet with
it."

"Oh, how _lovely_! I'll be thinking of it every minute. Don't forget.
Good-bye!"

She blew him a kiss and flitted daintily into the house.

William blushed furiously at the blown kiss and descended from his
precarious perch.

He went to the library where his grown-up sister Ethel and his elder
brother Robert were standing on ladders at opposite ends of the room,
engaged in hanging up festoons of ivy and holly across the wall.
There was to be dancing in the library after supper. William's mother
watched them from a safe position on the floor.

[Illustration: "IF YOU'LL BE IN YOUR SUMMER-HOUSE AT HALF-PAST, I'LL
BRING YOU SOME CREAM BLANC-MANGE. TRULY I WILL!" SAID WILLIAM.]

"Look here, mother," began William. "Am I or am I not coming to the
party to-night?"

William's mother sighed.

"For goodness' sake, William, don't open that discussion again. For
the tenth time to-day, you are _not_!"

"But _why_ not?" he persisted. "I only want to know why not. That's
all I want to know. It looks a bit funny, doesn't it, to give a party
and leave out your only son, at least,"--with a glance at Robert, and a
slight concession to accuracy--"to leave out one of your only two
sons? It looks a bit queer, surely. That's all I'm thinking of--how it
will look."

"A bit higher your end," said Ethel.

"Yes, that's better," said William's mother.

"It's a _young_ folks' party," went on William, warming to his
subject. "I heard you tell Aunt Jane it was a _young_ folk