"Have you been awake long, my dear?" she said. "I'm so sorry." "Nurse," whispered Mary, pulling nurse's head close down so that she could whisper to her, "I heard Old Sarah and Little Sarah talking, and Old Sarah sayed `Thursday' and `May.' Is it my birfday comed, nurse? Mamma sayed it was coming in May, and it would be Thursday." "My dearie," said nurse, "you've guessed right. It is your birthday-- the 18th of May." Mary felt pleased, but also a little disappointed. She had been waiting for her birthday and thinking about it for such a long time that now she could scarcely believe it had come. For it seemed just like other days. No, not quite like other days, not as nice. For nurse had got up so early and Old Sarah and Little Sarah had been talking in the nursery-- she did not like anybody to talk like that in the nursery. "Dress me quick, please, nurse," she said, "and then I'll go to mamma's room, and then p'raps my birfday will begin. I don't think it can have beginned yet. I thought--" and then she stopped and her lips quivered a little. "What, my dearie?" said nurse. She was a very kind, understanding nurse always, but this morning she spoke even more kindly than other mornings to Mary. "I don't know," said Mary. "I think I thought mamma would come to kiss me in bed like a fairy, and--and--I thought there'd be stockings or somefin' like that--like Kissimas, you know." Nurse had lifted Mary out of her bath by this time, and was rubbing her with a nice large "soft-roughey" towel--"soft-roughey" was one of Mary and Artie's words--it meant the opposite of "prick-roughey." They did not like "prick-roughey" things. She wrapped Mary all round in the big towel for a minute; it was nice and warm, for it had been hanging in front of the fire; then she gave Mary a little hug. "You mustn't be unhappy, dear Miss Mary," she said. "Mamma meant to come, I'm sure, but she's fast asleep--and when she wakes I'm afraid she'll have a headache. So I'm afraid your birthday won't be quite like what you planned. But I'm sure there'll be some pretty presents for you--quite sure." But Mary looked up with her lips quivering still more, and the tears beginning to come too. "It isn't presents I want," she said. "Not presents like that way. I-- I want mamma. Mammas shouldn't have headaches. It takes away all the birfday-ness." Then she turned her head round and pressed it in to nurse's shoulder and burst into tears. CHAPTER TWO. GUESSING. Poor nurse was very sorry. But she knew it would not do to be _too_ sorry for Mary, for then she would go on crying. And once Mary got into a long cry it sometimes went on to be a very long one indeed. So nurse spoke to her quite brightly.