When Sharley and Nan and Vallie came the next time, I ran to meet them, full of anxiety to know if they had made any 'plans.' They all looked very important, but rather to my disappointment the first thing Sharley said to me was

We've promised

'Don't ask us yet, Helena. mother not to tell. She's going to come to fetch us to-day, and she's made a lovely plan, but first she has to speak about it to your grandmamma.'

'Then it won't be a surprise,' I began, but Vallie answered before I had time to say any more.

'Oh yes, it will. There's to be a surprise mixed up with it, and we're to settle that part of it all ourselves you and us.'

I found it very difficult to keep to speaking French that day, I can tell you. And it seemed as if the hour and a half of lessons spread out to twice as much before Mrs. Nestor at last came.

We all ran out into the garden while she went in to talk to grandmamma. They were very kind and did not keep us long waiting, and soon we heard granny calling us from the window. Her face was quite pleased and smiling. I saw in a moment that she was not going to say I should not have spoken of her birthday to the little girls.

'Mrs. Nestor is thinking of a great treat for youand for me, Helena,' she said. 'And she and I want you to know about it at once, so that you may all talk about it together and enjoy it beforehand as well. Some little bird, it seems, has flown over to Moor Court and told that next Tuesday week will be your old granny's birthday, and Mrs. Nestor has invited us to spend the afternoon of it there. You will like that, will you not?'

I looked up at grandmamma, feeling quite strange. You will hardly believe that I had never in my life paid even a visit of this simple kind.

'Yes,' I whispered, feeling myself getting pink all over, as I knew that Mrs. Nestor was looking at me, 'yes, thank you.'

Then dear little Vallie came close up to me, and said in a low voice

'Now we can settle about the surprise. Come quick, Helena—the surprise will be the fun.'

And when I found myself alone with the others again, all three of them, even Nan, chattering at once, I soon found my own tongue again, and the strange, unreal sort of feeling went off. They were very simple unspoilt children, though their parents were rich and what I used to call 'grand.' It is quite

a mistake to think that the children who live in very large houses and have ponies and lots of servants and everything they can want are sure to be spoilt. Very often it is quite the opposite. For, if their parents are good and wise, they are extra careful not to spoil them, knowing that the sort of trials that cannot be kept away from poorer children, and which are a training in themselves in some ways, are not likely to come to their children. I even think now, looking back, that there was really more risk of being spoilt, for me myself, than for Sharley and her brothers and sisters.

Being allowed to be selfish is the real beginning and end of being spoilt, I am quite sure.

The 'surprise' they had thought of was a very simple one, and one that I knew grandmamma would like. It was that we should have tea out-of-doors, in an arbour where there was a table and seats all round. And we were to decorate it with flowers, and a wicker arm-chair was to be brought out for granny, and wreathed with greenery and flowers, to show that she was queen of the feast.

'So it will be a "fête," after all, Helena,' said Sharley.

They were nearly as eager and pleased about it

as I was myself, for they had already learnt to love my grandmamma very dearly.

'There's only one thing,' we kept saying to each other every time we met before the great day, ‘it mustn't rain. Oh, do let us hope it will be fine,beautifully fine.'

CHAPTER V

A HAPPY DAY

AND it was a fine day! Things after all do not always go wrong in this world, though some people are fond of talking as if they did.

That day, that happy birthday, stands out in my mind so clearly that I think I must write a good deal about it, even though to most children there would not seem anything very remarkable to tell. But to me it was like a peep into fairyland. To begin with, it was the very first time in my life that I had ever paid a visit of any kind except once or twice when I had had tea in rather a dull fashion at the vicarage, where there were no children and no one who understood much about them. Miss Linden, the vicar's sister, a very old-maid sort of lady, though she meant to be kind, had my tea put out in a corner of the room by myself, while she and grandmamma had theirs in a regular drawing-room way. They