Nan, her father, and mother, and Mrs. Stevens came in for a last word.

“I shall put on mourning to-morrow,” announced Nan in a melancholy voice, “for I shall be a widow.  What makes you go away, Mrs. Rayburn?”

“School and business call us to town, Nan, but we shall come every summer, and spend Christmas here, too, I hope.”

“This has been the best birthday I ever spent or ever expect to,” said Ethelwyn with the air of having spent at least fifty.  “It is such a good idea to give things away instead of always getting them, but if you can do both, as happened this time, it covers everything.”

Then they were all quiet for a little while, until Mrs. Rayburn went to the piano, and touching the keys, sang softly: 

    “And does thy day seem dark,
      All turned to rain? 
    Seek thou one out whose life
      Is filled with pain. 
    Put out a hand to help
      This greater need,
    And lo! within thy life
      The sun will shine indeed.”

CHAPTER X Beth’s Birthday

    The space between our birthdays seems to grow apace,
    When we’re young they loiter; when we’re old they race.

It began with a bad time; and so did the next day, as things sometimes do, even though they turn out all right at the end, like a rainy morning that clears off into a blue and gold afternoon.  Ethelwyn and Beth did not fall out very often, but then they didn’t have a birthday very often, nor Christmas, nor any other of the days when the land flows with ice cream and candy, and is bounded on the next day by crossness and pitfalls.

That was one reason.

That day early they had decided never to be bad again, never; “because,” said Ethelwyn, “it is very troublesome getting good again, and makes mother feel bad.”

“Uh huh,” said Beth.

They were not up yet, and the door leading into their mother’s room was open.

This was their “present” birthday, but they had not yet begun on their presents.  For fear you shouldn’t understand this, I will tell you Beth’s way of explaining it.

“Sister and me is twin children two years all but a month apart, and on the first birthday which comes in July, we have presents, and on the second, in August, we have a party, or a trip away, or something, and we have all the month to choose in.”

They generally chose thirty different things.  Their mother nearly always let them have the last one, but once or twice, as when they wanted to go up in an air ship, she compromised on a steam launch on the river, as safer, and nearer at hand.

This morning being “present” morning, they were glad to see the sunshine darting in at their window, and to hear the birds singing outside something like this—­

    “Wake up, children:  the day is new. 
    It’s full of joy for dears like you.”

So they woke up laughing, at least Ethelwyn did, and told Beth what the birds sang; but Beth was sleepy and uttered her usual “Uh huh.”