Hastily she opened the door, and saw Toddie tear-stained and dirty, lying on the floor, fast asleep. She stooped over him to be sure that he still breathed, and then the expression on his sweetly parted lips was such that she could not help kissing them. Then she raised the pathetic, desolate little figure softly in her arms, and the little head dropped upon her shoulder and nestled close to her neck, and one little arm was clasped tightly around her throat, and a soft voice murmured:

"I wantsh to go a'widin'."

And just then Mr. Burton entered, and, with a most exasperating affection of ingenuousness and uncertainty, asked:

"Did you conquer his will, my dear?"

His wife annihilated him with a look, and led the way to the dining-room; meanwhile Toddie awoke, straightened himself, rubbed his eyes, recognized his uncle and exclaimed:

"Uncle Harry, does you know where we's goin' this afternoon? We's goin'

a-widin'."

And Mr. Burton hid in his napkin all of his face that was below his eyes, and his wife wished that his eyes might have been hidden, too, for never in her life had she been so averse to having her own eyes looked into.

The extreme saintliness of both boys during the afternoon's ride took the sting out of Mrs. Burton's defeat. They gabbled to each other about flowers and leaves and birds, and they assumed ownership of the few Summer clouds that were visible, and made sundry exchanges of them with each. When the dog Jerry, who had surreptitiously followed the carriage and grown weary, was taken in by his master, they even allowed him to lie at their feet without kicking, pinching his ears, or pulling his tail.

As for Mrs. Burton, no right-minded husband could willfully torment his wife upon her birthday, so she soon forgot the humiliation of the morning, and came home with superb spirits and matchless complexion for the little party. Her guests soon began to arrive, and after the company was assembled Mrs. Burton's chambermaid ushered in Budge and Toddie, each in spotless attire, and the dog Jerry ushered himself in, and Toddie saw him and made haste to interview him, and the two got inextricably mixed about the legs of a light _jardiniere_, and it came down with a crash, and then the two were sent into disgrace, which suited them exactly; although there was a difference between them as to whether the dog Jerry should seek and enjoy the seclusion upon which his heart was evidently intent.

Then Budge retired with a face full of fatherly solicitude, and Mrs.

Burton was enabled to devote herself to the friends to whom she had not previously been able to address a single consecutive sentence.

Mrs. Burton occasionally suggested to her husband that it might be well to see where the boys were, and what they were doing; but that gentleman had seldom before found himself the only man among a dozen comely and intelligent ladies, and he was too conscious of the variety of such experiences to trouble himself about a couple of people who had unlimited ability to keep themselves out of trouble; so the boys were undisturbed for the space of two hours. A sudden Summer shower came up in the meantime, and a sentimental young lady requested the song "Rain upon the Roof," and Mrs. Burton and her husband began to render it as a duet; but in the middle of the second stanza Mrs. Burton began to cough, Mr. Burton sniffed the air apprehensively, while several of the ladies started to their feet while others turned pale. The air of the room was evidently filled with smoke.

"There can't be any danger, ladies," said Mrs. Burton. "You all know what the American domestic servant is. I suppose our cook, with her delicate sense of the appropriate, is relighting her fire, and has the kitchen doors wide open, so that all the smoke may escape through the house instead of the chimney. I'll go and stop it."

The mere mention of servants had its usual effect; the ladies began at once that animated conversation which this subject has always inspired, and which it will probably continue to inspire until all housekeepers gather in that happy land, one of whose charms it is that the American kitchen is undiscernible within its borders, and the purified domestic may stand before her mistress without needing a scolding. But one nervous young lady, whose agitation was being manifested by her feet alone, happened to touch with the toe of her boot the turn-screw of the hot-air register. Instantly she sprang back and uttered a piercing scream, while from the register there arose a thick column of smoke.

"Fire!" screamed one lady.

"Water!" shrieked another.

"Oh!" shouted several in chorus.

Some ran up-stairs, others into the rainy street, the nervous young lady fainted, a business-like young matron, who had for years been maturing plans of operation in case of fire, hastily swept into a table-cover a dozen books in special morocco bindings, and hurried through the rain with them to a house several hundred feet away, while the faithful dog Jerry, scenting the trouble afar off, hurried home and did his duty to the best of his ability by barking and snapping furiously at every one, and galloping frantically through the house, leaving his mark upon almost every square yard of the carpet. Meanwhile Mr. Burton hurried up-stairs coatless, with disarranged hair, dirty hands, smirched face, and assured the ladies that there was no danger, while Budge and Toddie, the former deadly pale, and the latter almost apoplectic in color, sneaked up to their own chamber.

The company dispersed: ladies who had expected carriages did not wait for them, but struggled to the extreme verge of politeness for the use of such umbrellas and waterproof-cloaks as Mrs. Burton could supply.

Fifteen minutes later the only occupant of the parlor was the dog Jerry, who lay, with alert head, in the centre of a large "Turkish chair. Mrs.

Burton, tenderly supported by her husband, descended the stair, and contemplated with tightly compressed lips and blazing eyes the disorder of her desolated parlor. When, however, she reached the dining-room and beheld the exquisitely-set lunch-table, to the arrangement of which she had devoted hours of thought in preceding days and weeks, she burst into a flood of tears.

"I'll tell you how it was," remarked Budge, who appeared suddenly and without invitation, and whose consciousness of good intention made him as adamant before the indignant frowns of his uncle and aunt, "_I_ always think bonfires is the nicest things about celebrations, an' Tod an' me have been carryin' sticks for two days to make a big bonfire in the back yard to-day. But then it rained, an' rainy sticks won't burn--I _guess_ we found that out last Thanksgivin' Day. So we thought we'd make one in the cellar, 'cause the top is all tin, an' the bottom's all dirt, an' it can't rain in there at all. An' we got lots of newspapers and kindlin'-wood, an' put some kerosene on it, an' it blazed up beautiful, an' we was just comin' up to ask you all down to look at it, when in came Uncle Harry, an' banged me against the wall an' Tod into the coal-heap, an' threw a mean old dirty carpet on top of it, an' wet'ed it all over."

"Little boysh never _can_ do anyfing nysh wivout bein' made to don't,"

said Toddie. "Dzust see what an awful big splinter I got in my hand when I was froin' wood on the fire! I didn't cry a _bit_ about it then, 'cause I fought I was makin' uvver folks happy, like the Lord wants little boysh to. But they didn't _get_ happy, so now I _am_ goin' to cry 'bout the splinter!"

And Toddie raised a howl which was as much superior to his usual cry as things made to order generally are over the ordinary supply.

"We had a torchlight procession, too," said Budge. "We had to have it in the attic, but it wasn't very nice. There wasn't any trees up there for the light to dance around on, like it does on 'lection-day nights. So we just stopped, an' would have felt real doleful if we hadn't thought of the bonfire."

"Where did you leave the torches?" asked Mr. Burton, springing from his chair, and lifting his wife to her feet at the same time.

"I--I dunno," said Budge, after a moment of thought.

"Froed 'em in a closet where the rags is, so's not to dyty the nice floor wif 'em," said Toddie.

Mr. Burton hurried up-stairs and extinguished a smoldering heap of rags, while his wife, truer to herself than she imagined she was, drew Budge to her, and said, kindly:

"_Wanting_ to make people happy, and _doing_ it are two very different things, Budge."

"Yes, I should think they was," said Budge, with an emphasis which explained much that was left unsaid.

"Little boysh is goosies for tryin' to make big folksh happy at all,"

said Toddie, beginning again to cry.

"Oh, no, they're not, dear," said Mrs. Burton, taking the sorrowful child into her lap. "But they don't always understand how best to do it, so they ought to ask big folks before they begin."

"Then there wouldn't be no s'prises," complained Toddie. "Say; izh we goin' to eat all this supper?"

"I suppose so, if we can," sighed Mrs. Burton.

"I _guesh_ we can--Budgie an' me," said Toddie. "An' _won't_ we be glad all them wimmens wented away!"

That evening, after the boys had retired, Mrs. Burton seemed a little uneasy of mind, and at length she said to her husband:

"I feel guilty at never having directed the boys' devotions since they have been here, and I know no better time than the present in which to begin."

Mr. Burton's eyes followed his wife reverently as she left the room. The service she proposed to render the children she had sometimes performed for himself, with results for which he could not be grateful enough, and yet it was not with unalloyed anticipation that he softly followed her up the stair. Mrs. Burton went into the chamber and found the boys playing battering-ram, each with a pillow in front of him.

"Children," said she, "have you said your prayers?"

"No," said Budge; "somebody's got to be knocked down first. _Then_ we will."

A sudden tumble by Toddie was the signal for devotional exercises, and both boys knelt beside the bed.

"Now, darlings," said Mrs. Burton, "you have made some sad mistakes to-day, and they should teach you that, even when you want most to do right, you need to be helped by somebody better. Don't you think so?"

"_I_ do," said Budge. "Lots."

"_I_ don't," said Toddie. "More help I getsh, the worse fings is. Guesh I'll do fings all alone affer thish."

"I know what to say to the Lord to-night, Aunt Alice," said Budge.

"_Dear_ little boy," said Mrs. Burton, "go on."

"Dear Lord," said Budge, "we _do_ have the _awfullest_ times when we try to make other folks happy. _Do_, please, Lord--please teach big folks how hard little folks have to think before they do things for 'em. An'

make 'em understand little folks _every_ way better than they do, so that they don't make little folks unhappy when they try to make big folks feel jolly. Make big folks have to think as hard as little folks do, for Christ's sake--Amen! Oh, yes, an' bless dear mamma an' the sweet little sister baby. How's that, Aunt Alice?"

Mrs. Burton did not reply, and Budge, on turning, saw only her departing figure, while Toddie remarked:

"Now, it's _my_ tyne (turn.) Dear Lord, when I getsh to be a little boy anzel up in hebben, don't let growed-up anzels come along whenever I'm doin' anyfing nice for 'em, an' say '_don't_,' or tumble me down in heaps of nashty old black coal. _There_! Amen!"