“I don’t know what those flat gimcracks are for, Holly,” he said, as she kissed him, “but ‘Ham’ he said he reckoned you’d know what to do with them. I told him, ‘Ham, you’re a married man and I’m a bachelor, and don’t you go and impose on my ignorance. If there’s anything indelicate about those instruments you take ’em out.’ But he said as long as I didn’t see ’em in use it was all right and proper.” Julian had sent a tiny gold brooch and Winthrop had presented a five-pound box of candy. Of the two the candy made the more pronounced hit. It had come all the way from New York, and was such an imposing affair with its light blue moire-paper box and its yards of silk ribbon! And then the wonderful things inside! Candied violets and rose- and chrysanthemum-petals, grapes hidden in coverings of white cream, little squares of fruit-cake disguised as plebeian caramels, purple raisins and white almonds buried side by side in amber glacé, white and lavender pellets that broke to nothing in the mouth and left a surprising and agreeable flavor of brandy, little smooth nuggets of gold and silver and a dozen other fanciful whims of the confectioner. The girls screamed and laughed with delight, and the Major pretended to feel the effects of three brandy-drops and insisted on telling Miss India about his second wife. There had been other gifts besides. Holly’s old “mammy” had walked in, three miles, with six-guinea-eggs in a nest of gray moss; Phœbe had gigglingly presented a yard of purple silk “h’ar ribbon,” Aunt Venus had brought a brown checked sun-bonnet of her own making, and even Young Tom, holding one thumb tightly between his teeth and standing embarrassedly on one dusty yellow foot, had brought his gift, a bundle of amulets rolled out of newspaper and artistically dyed in beet juice. Yes, everyone had been very kind to Holly, and her eighteenth birthday was nothing short of an occasion.