I.
O sit down, Master Harry, and allow me to put your shoes on!'
'Well, try like this, Mary. I will pretend to be a stork, and stand on one leg.'
'Really, you are a tiresome boy to-night,' said poor Mary with a sigh of despair, 'and you know that Nannie is waiting for me to get Baby's bath ready. Poor Master Harry,' she continued after a pause, during which that young gentleman had been trying, unsuccessfully, to balance himself on one leg, 'I don't believe I shall have time now to tell you that interesting secret.'
'Interesting secret, Mary?' asked the boy in an eager voice. 'Oh, Mary, I will be quite good if you will tell it to me.'
Harry loved a secret. So many of the nice things in his life had been sprung upon him in this form that the very word 'secret' was to his youthful mind a promise of coming happiness.
'Let me guess,' he pleaded in answer to her nod, and for at least two minutes, during which time Mary put on and buttoned the shoes, there was silence.
'Is it about my birthday?'
'Yes,' said Mary, taking advantage of the unusual peace to give a few additional touches to her young master's smart sailor suit. This over, she drew his curly head down and whispered in a deep, slow voice, that sent a shiver through Harry's little body, 'As to-morrow is your birthday, your father and mother are going to give you a present that has four legs! Now run away downstairs; for I heard the motor going round to the stables, and your father must be home again!'