She spread out its roots and pressed it down and padded up the earth about it with her hands. It held out its tiny branches, stiffly, like a toy tree, standing no higher than the mignonette. Papa looked at Mamma and Mark, busy and happy with their heads together, taking no notice of him. He laughed out of his big beard and went back into the house suddenly and slammed the door. You knew that he disliked the sumach tree and that he was angry with Mark for giving it to Mamma. When you smelt mignonette you thought of Mamma and Mark and the sumach tree, and Papa standing on the steps, and the queer laugh that came out of his beard. When it rained you were naughty and unhappy because you couldn't go out of doors. Then Mamma stood at the window and looked into the front garden. She smiled at the rain. She said, "It will be good for my sumach tree." Every day you went out on to the steps to see if the sumach tree had grown. VIII. The white lamb stood on the table beside her cot. Mamma put it there every night so that she could see it first thing in the morning when she woke. She had had a birthday. Suddenly in the middle of the night she was five years old. She had kept on waking up with the excitement of it. Then, in the dark twilight of the room, she had seen a bulky thing inside the cot, leaning up against the rail. It stuck out queerly and its weight dragged the counterpane tight over her feet. The birthday present. What she saw was not its real shape. When she poked it, stiff paper bent in and crackled; and she could feel something big and solid underneath. She lay quiet and happy, trying to guess what it could be, and fell asleep again. It was the white lamb. It stood on a green stand. It smelt of dried hay and gum and paint like the other toy animals, but its white coat had a dull, woolly smell, and that was the real smell of the lamb. Its large, slanting eyes stared off over its ears into the far corners of the room, so that it never looked at you. This made her feel sometimes that the lamb didn't love her, and sometimes that it was frightened and wanted to be comforted. She trembled when first she stroked it and held it to her face, and sniffed its lamby smell. Papa looked down at her. He was smiling; and when she looked up at him she was not afraid. She had the same feeling that came sometimes when she sat in Mamma's lap and Mamma talked about God and Jesus. Papa was sacred and holy. He had given her the lamb. It was the end of her birthday; Mamma and Jenny were putting her to bed. She felt weak and tired, and sad because it was all over. "Come to that," said Jenny, "your birthday was over at five minutes past twelve this morning." "When will it come again?" "Not for a whole year," said Mamma. "I wish it would come to-morrow." Mamma shook her head at her. "You want to be spoiled and petted every day." "No. No. I want--I want--" "She doesn't know what she wants," said Jenny. "Yes. I do. I _do_." "Well--"