PART II.
Reading edition
BIRTHDAY was on a Wednesday. And though it was only May the weather for a wonder was mild and sunny. Northclough for once was looking almost bright.
"It is nice for you to have such a fine day to be six years old on, Miss Pansy dear," said nurse, when she came in to wake up the two little sisters and to give her own birthday present of a neat little pincushion for Pansy's toilet table. And the boys had something for her too, at least it was called "the boys'," to please Charley, though in reality it was Bob who had bought it, or the things to make "it" with. For the "it" was a little blotting-book covered outside with thick cardboard on which pretty pictures were pasted. It was very cleverly made, for Bob was wonderfully neat-handed for such a little boy, and it had taken quite a lot of contrivance to get it done without his sister's finding out about it. And Ruth's present was a pen-wiper.
Pansy was pleased.
"I can write to godmother now without having to ask mamma to lend me her writing-case," she said. "I suppose," she went on, "I shall have to write to her to-day; there's sure to be a useful present come from her," and Pansy sighed a little, for the writing to godmother was the one part of her birthday she did not enjoy.
Nurse could not help smiling at what she would have called Miss Pansy's "old-fashioned" way of speaking. She always talked of godmother's "useful presents," because she had so often been told that frocks and jackets and so on were such nice, useful gifts. And perhaps I should have mentioned before, that godmother did not forget the little people at Northclough Vicarage at Christmas, something useful was sure to come then, for she was great aunt to them all as well as godmother to one.
But before nurse had time to speak, the door opened and the children's mother came in. They were at breakfast in the day nursery by this time. She had a bright smile on her face and a small parcel in her hand.
"Good morning, darlings, to you all," she said, "and many, many happy returns to my Pansy. Papa told me to kiss you for him too, he won't be in till dinner-time I'm afraid. There now, a kiss for him and one for myself," Pansy was in her mother's arms long before this, "and a present from godmother."
Mamma sat down on the nursery rocking-chair as she spoke, and laid the parcel on her knee, and Pansy, stooping down beside her, began to undo the string which fastened it.
"Is it not a useful present this time, mamma?" she asked, for certainly it did not look like a hat or a frock, or a hamper of china.
"I hope you will think it so," said her mother smiling, "and pretty too."
"A book," exclaimed the little girl, "and oh, yes, it is a very pretty one. And oh, mamma, it's two books, in a 'loverly'"—Pansy still said some words rather funnily—"case, all red leather, and, oh! my own name, 'Pansy,' how nice! What can they be? A prayer-book and a hymn-book, with such beautiful big letters, and 'reds' in the prayer-book. How I wish it was Sunday, for me to take them to church."
She was truly delighted—her little face all rosy with pleasure. Mamma could not resist giving her another kiss.
"You will take the greatest care of them, I know, dear," she said. "And now I have only a very tiny present from papa and me," and she held out a bright new shilling. "You may buy anything you like with it, dear."
This was delightful news. What between her pride in her beautiful "church books," as she called them, and thinking over what her shilling would buy, the little girl had hard work to eat her breakfast that morning, even though, in honour of the birthday, it was an extra nice one.
You will think I am a very long time getting to the "pansy," which gives its name to this little story, but we are coming to it now.
There was a great consultation held in Pansy's room, and this was what the children decided; sixpence should be spent on a pair of ducks to float in a basin of water attracted by a magnet, a toy which they had seen in a shop window with the price marked in plain figures. And sixpence should be spent, for Pansy's own special pleasure, in a flower growing in a pot, such as they had often seen on the flower-stall below their windows. The ducks could be bought that very morning, which Pansy was glad of, as she knew that Bob and Ruth were even more anxious to have them than she was herself. But for the flower she would have to wait till the next day.
However, the birthday passed very happily, and it was very nice to wake in the morning with the feeling that part of its pleasures were still to come, and mamma promised to go with her herself to the stall to choose the flower.
It was to be a pansy. Not a quite fully blown one, her mother advised her, for then it would be the sooner over, but one nearly so. There had been quite a good choice of them for the last week or two; the only difficulty would be what colour to have.
"Yellow ones are very pretty," said the little girl as she skipped along by her mother's side that Thursday morning on their way to the market, for though it was just below the vicarage windows, you had to make quite a round to get to it from the front door, "yellow ones, and those browny ones too are very nice, but I think I like the purple ones best—I mean the violet-coloured ones—don't you mamma?"
"I think I do," her mother agreed. "They remind one of the dear little wild pansies, or dog violets, too."
And by good luck, the old woman who kept the flower-stall, had some beautiful purple pansies, none of the paler ones were half so pretty that day, so the choice was not so difficult after all. Mamma picked out a beauty, with two flowers on it, one almost full blown, and the other not far behind, and a proud little girl was Pansy, as, after having paid her sixpence she trotted home again, her precious namesake tightly clasped in her arms.
"I don't think I've ever had such nice birthday presents, have I, mamma?" she said, as she lifted up her own soft little face, as sweet and as soft as the flower, for a kiss, before hurrying upstairs to the nursery to show her treasure.
And it made her mother very happy to see that her little daughter had that best of all fairy gifts, a grateful and contented heart.
But Pansy had her troubles like other people, as you will hear.