“Here is your first guest, then,” said Paul, as he accepted the seat June offered him. “I present him to you with my sincere wish that every birthday may be as bright as this your seventeenth.”
“Thank you, Paul! Many thanks for so lovely a 104 present,” June said, as she lifted the bright cage containing a parrot, which Paul offered her.
“What is your name, sir?” she asked.
“Bob!” croaked the bird. “Pretty Bob.”
“I shall cherish him in remembrance of you, Paul,” said June, “and how nice he will be to amuse poor Papa. He is obliged to keep his room so much of late.”
“Is he no better to-day?” Scott asked, with an anxious look.
“Yes, much better, and is out riding with mama.”
“Sit down here, little one,” Scott said, drawing a chair near his own. “I have brought you a little present to start the day with. I wish you to look at it.”
June seated herself by Scott and took from his hand a beautifully bound book of poems.
“It is by some new author—at least new to me; but it is a beautiful poem. I took the liberty to read it before presenting it to you.”