“What shall we do for Milly Center on her birthday?” asked Mrs. Wilkes, that unwearied chaperon.
Miss Millicent was not too old to have a birthday on the day before the race. Mr. Dulger was aware of this epoch and had written to Bridgeman for a barrel of flowers. Dulger’s clerkly salary—for his stern papa kept him on a salary much too exiguous for his exigencies—his salary hardly sufficed for his systematic floral tributes. He had been obliged to write to the bookkeeper in Front Street for another temporary loan. Billy had presentiments that the crisis of his fate was at hand. He would not fail at the last for want of sufficient investment. A flower barrel was a grandiose gift. He was confident that no one else had thought of it. True love makes a Dulger a genius. If the wooed could not be won by a barrel of flowers, he would forever fly her false toleration and among the flour barrels toilsomely regain his wasted bouquet money. Poor Billy Dulger! So long a Tolerated, he was weary of this “longing much, hoping little, asking naught.”
“How shall Milly’s birthday be honoured?” was, however, still a question for the generality. Each suggested other things and a picnic.
“A picnic, of course,” said the masterly Mrs. Wilkes.
“To the Dumplings, of course.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Why, yes; how could we think of anything else?”
“With a band,” said Julia, “and dancing on the grass.”
“With a boatload of champagne,” said Cloanthus.
“No flirtations allowed,” suggested Peter Skerrett.