e three kittens were just a month old on the last day of March, and
this was also Philippa Trevor's birthday. She would have liked her
birthday to be in the summer, because an out-of-doors party was so much
nicer than an indoors one, but even Philippa could not arrange
everything in the world as she wished. So she was obliged to put up
with a birthday which came in the spring, when there were very few
leaves on the trees, and the grass was generally too wet to walk on, and
the sky often cold and grey. Philippa had found that she could get most
things by crying for them, but still there remained some quite beyond
her reach, and unmoved by her tears, and it was just these that she most
wanted and wailed for when she was in a perverse mood. These were times
of discomfort throughout the house, and of great distress to her mother
and Miss Mervyn, for with the best will in the world they could not make
the rain stop nor the sun shine, nor time go quicker. Yet, if Philippa
cried herself ill, as she often did for some such unreasonable whim, it
was so very bad for her.

"We must keep the child cheerful, my dear madam," Dr Smith had said to
Mrs Trevor. "The nerves are delicate. She must be amused without
excitement, and never allowed to work herself into a passion, or to be
violently distressed about anything. It will be well to yield to her,
if possible, rather than to thwart her."

But though he said "we," the doctor went away, and it was those who
lived with Philippa who had to carry out this difficult task. The last
part of it was easy, only it did not seem to produce the desired result.
Philippa was yielded to in everything, but instead of being cheerful
and contented, she became more fretful and dissatisfied, had less
self-control than ever, and flew into passions about the very smallest
trifles. This was the case on the morning of her birthday, when there
were two things which seriously displeased her. One was the weather,
for, instead of being fine and sunshiny, it rained so hard that it
seemed doubtful whether her little friends would come to the party. The
other was, that the musical box which her mother had promised her, and
which was to play twelve tunes, did not arrive as early as she expected.

"It's all as horrid as it can be," she said sulkily when Miss Mervyn
tried to comfort her. "I don't care a bit for the other presents if the
musical box doesn't come.--And it's raining harder than ever.
Everyt