The 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. Everything’s horrid.”
“It will clear up very likely by the afternoon,” said Miss Mervyn.
“But if it does,” whined Philippa, “and if they all come, I shan’t have my musical box to show them.”
“Perhaps it will come before then,” said Miss Mervyn patiently, and at that minute a small covered hamper was brought into the room.
“A parcel from Fieldside for Miss Philippa,” said the servant.
“Then it’s not the musical box,” said Philippa, who had looked up with renewed hope.
“I wonder what it can be,” said Miss Mervyn. “Something alive, I think. Come, Philippa, let us open it.”