After supper, in the twilight of the garden, as usual, the mother and the girls, with Win—and Chum, as always, at Florimel’s feet—sat expecting Mr. and Mrs. Moulton. They heard Mark’s halting step coming down the street, unaccompanied. Mark’s lameness was less visible than audible. It swayed his body but slightly, but it gave an irregular beat to his footfall.
“Mark is coming without them!” said Mary.
Mark came in at the side gate and across the path to the group. “Thought I’d find you here,” he said. “Aren’t you chilly?”
“Not yet, but we shall be soon,” said Mrs. Garden. “It was uncomfortably warm in the sunshine to-day, but there’s a chilliness creeping into the evening.”
“September,” suggested Mark. “Summer’s over; though it takes the sun awhile to find it out, the stars know it. I’ve a good deal to tell you. May I bring a chair?”
“With my help, Markums,” said Win, rising to take one arm of the garden chair which Mark went over to fetch.
“Oh, why not go in at once? We shall only have to move after Mark gets under way with his story,” said Florimel, who hated to be interrupted when she was interested.
“No; let’s cling to every possible moment of our last garden evenings this year!” cried Jane, and Mark dropped into the chair which Win considerately halted near Mary.
“I don’t know how to tell you,” said Mark, as they all looked at him, waiting for him to begin. “I had a birthday to-day.”
“And never told us!” Jane reproached him.