"What's the use of having a feast with no guests to eat it?" muttered the boy. "And what's the use of having money when one is not able to spend it?"
"Well, Master Tom," said Susan, gaily, "if you can't tell what to do with your money, I know a famous way in which you could spend it; and if you want guests, I know how you can get as many as you please to invite."
"You do—do you?" cried the boy, with eager surprise.
"It happens," said Susan, "that my dear mother's birthday falls on the same day as yours, and I have been intending, for some time past, to give a feast to four children in honour of the day."
"You—a nursery-maid!" exclaimed Tom Fairley. "And pray, does mamma know what you are after?"
"Oh! No," replied Susan, smiling, "no one knows but myself; but perhaps, if you are very good, I may let you into my secret?"
"But you've no business to invite any one into our house," cried Tom, in an insolent tone. "It would be a pretty joke indeed if you could have friends here, when we are not allowed to have one."
"My guests will not eat their dinner here," replied Susan. "I shall send it for them in so clever a way that all the four dinners could be easily packed up in my thimble."
"Your thimble! Oh! What do you mean—what can you mean?" cried both the Fairleys in a breath.
And Jessy added, with a merry little laugh, "I don't think that such a feast as yours would feed a hungry mouse."