“Indeed! but you never keep it, though.”
“What do you mean by keeping your birthday?”
“Oh, mamma, you know very well—as Bell’s birthday is kept. In the first place, there is a great dinner.”
“And can Bell eat more upon her birthday than upon any other day?”
“No; nor I should not mind about the dinner, except the mince-pies. But Bell has a great many nice things—I don’t mean nice eatable things, but nice new playthings, given to her always on her birthday; and everybody drinks her health, and she’s so happy.”
“But stay, Rosamond, how you jumble things together! Is it everybody’s drinking her health that makes her so happy? or the new playthings, or the nice mince pies? I can easily believe that she is happy whilst she is eating a mince pie, or whilst she is playing; but how does everybody’s drinking her health at dinner make her happy?”
Rosamond paused, and then said she did not know. “But,” added she, “the nice new playthings, mother!”
“But why the nice new playthings? Do you like them only because they are new?”
“Not only—I do not like playthings only because they are new; but Bell does, I believe—for that puts me in mind—Do you know, mother, she had a great drawer full of old playthings that she never used, and she said that they were good for nothing, because they were old; but I thought many of them were good for a great deal more than the new ones. Now you shall be judge, mamma; I’ll tell you all that was in the drawer.”