“Why, it isn’t our birthdays or anything,” said Cricket, wonderingly. “Has anybody else anything?”
“This is your special celebration,” said mamma, gaily. “Open and see.”
The speechless children stared at what the little morocco cases held.
“What—where—why—” stammered Eunice at last, and their mother explained, while the rest of the family looked on beamingly.
“A momentum!” shrieked Cricket, snatching up the golden, gleaming thing from its pink satin pillow, and dancing around the room with a perfect whoop of delight. “Mine? ours? that dear old duck! Eunice, let’s go and thank him straight off. I want to hug him and kiss him, and I always used to be so scared of him.”
She was bolting for the door, but her father called her back.
“He’d be ‘scared’ of you if you did. Write him a nice little note after breakfast. He would much prefer that.”
“Aren’t they too deliciously sweet for words?” murmured Eunice, hugging her treasure to her heart.
“See those dear little curly letters on the cover,” said Cricket, rapturously examining them. “J. M. W.,—Jean Maxwell Ward. And inside,—oh, Eunice! do you see? Here’s a date! It’s the day we went to the President! Isn’t this the very loveliest momentum he could have given us?”
“Memento, dear,” suggested mamma.