On such a day who would not be happy? And Mary was perhaps the happiest little girl in the kingdom. Happy as she was she lost much of her plainness, her eyes sparkling behind her glasses, her mouth smiling. Something tender and poignant in her, some distant prophecy of her maturity, one day beautifully to be fulfilled, coming forth in her, because she felt that she was beloved even though it were only for an hour. She was lucky in her presents; her mother gave her a silver watch, a little darling, quite small, with the hours marked in blue on the face, and her father gave her a silver watch chain so thin that you thought that it would break if you looked at it, and in reality so strong that not the strongest man in the world could break it. Aunt Amy gave her a muff, soft and furry, and Helen gave her a red leather blotter, and Uncle Samuel sent her a book, the very “Dynevon Terrace” that she wanted—how _did_ he know? And Miss Jones gave her a work basket with the prettiest silk lining inside you ever saw, and a pair of gloves from Barbara and—a glass bottle with a silver stopper from Jeremy! It seemed that she liked this last present best of all. She rushed up to Jeremy and kissed him in the wettest possible way. “Oh, Jeremy! I _am_ so glad. That’s _just_ what I wanted! I’ve never seen such a darling. I’ve never had any silver things to stand on my table and Gladys Sampson has such a lot, and this is prettier than any that Gladys has. Oh! mother, _do_ look! See what Jeremy’s given me! Father, see what Jeremy’s given me! Isn’t it pretty, Miss Jones? You are a _dear_, Jeremy, and I’ll have it all my life!” Jeremy stood there, his heart like lead. It may be said with truth of him that never in his whole existence had he felt such shame as he did now. Mean, mean, mean! Suddenly, now that it was too late, he hated that book upstairs lying safely in his bottom drawer. He didn’t want ever to look at it again. And Mary. She must _know_ that this was his old glass bottle that he had had so long. She had seen it a hundred times. It is true that he had rubbed it up and got the woman in the kitchen to polish the silver, but still she must _know_. He looked at her with new interest. Was it all acting, this enthusiasm? No, it was not. She was genuinely moved and delighted. Was she pretending to herself that she had never seen it before, forcing herself to believe that it was new? He would keep the book and give it to her at Christmas. But that would not be the same thing. The deed was done now. The shabby, miserable deed.