“I shouldn’t think it would be much fun, when you haven’t anything to do up but your own old things,” objected Paul. “What are Grandma and Aunt Kate going to give?”
“Grandma and Aunt Kate!” repeated Molly, in astonishment, “why, they never give presents except on Christmas, and then Grandma only gave us some woolen stockings, and Aunt Kate gave us each a cake of scented soap. Grandma says nobody ever gave her a birthday present in her life.”
“I got a lot of things on my birthday,” said Paul. “Father gave me a velocipede, and Mother a lot of books, and—I say, I’d like to give Dulcie a present, too. Father gave me five dollars to spend in New York. What do you think she’d like?”
“Oh, Paul, how kind you are!” cried Molly, her face beaming with pleasure. “I know a book she wants dreadfully, and she never can get it at the library, because it’s always out. It’s ‘Little Men,’ by Miss Alcott. We’ve all read ‘Little Women,’ and we loved it, but ‘Little Men’ has been out every time Dulcie asked for it.”
“All right,” said Paul, grandly, “she shall have it. I’ll get Mother to take me to a bookstore to-morrow. Do you always give each other your old things for birthday presents?”
“Yes, at least we have since Papa went away. Daisy’s birthday comes in May, and mine is in July. I suppose Dulcie will give the locket to Daisy, because it’s about the nicest thing we’ve got, and perhaps—I don’t know, of course—but Daisy may give it to me when my birthday comes. Maud’s birthday isn’t till September, and by that time I can give it back to her again.”
“Well, it’s the queerest way of giving presents that I ever heard of,” declared Paul. “I shouldn’t like it one bit, but I suppose you don’t mind so much if you’re used to it.”
“There isn’t any use minding what you can’t help,” said Molly, philosophically, and just then the dinner-bell rang, and the conversation came to an end.
Immediately after dinner the three younger girls left the dining-room, and Dulcie, looking quite happy and excited, sat down to spend a silent evening with her elders. Paul would have liked to follow the others, but was too proud to go where he had not been invited, so having nothing better to do, he consented with unusually good grace to his mother’s proposal that he should read a chapter or two of ancient history.
“To-morrow is your birthday, isn’t it?” Paul observed to Dulcie, as the two children went up-stairs together, at eight o’clock.