Toddie suddenly found himself alone again.
CHAPTER IV
Mrs. Burton’s birthday dawned brightly, and it is not surprising that as it was her first natal anniversary since her marriage to a man who had no intention or ability to cease being a lover, her ante-breakfast moments were too fully and happily occupied to allow her to even think of two little boys who had already impressed upon her their willingness and general ability to think for themselves. As for the boys themselves, they woke with the lark, and with a heavy sense of responsibility also. The room of Mrs. Burton’s chambermaid joined their own, and the occupant of that room having been charged by her mistress with the general care of the boys between dark and daylight, she had grown accustomed to wake at the first sound in the boys’s room. On the morning of her mistress’s birthday the first sound she heard was:
“Tod?”
No response could be heard; but a moment later the chambermaid heard:
“T—o—o—od!”
“Ah—h—h—ow!” drawled a voice, not so sleepily but it could sound aggrieved.
“Wake up, dear old Toddie budder. It’ Aunt Alice’s birthday now.”
“Needn’t bweak my earzh open, if ’tis,” whined Toddie.