"I want to love Papa every day. 'Cause he gave me my lamb." "Oh," said Mamma, "if you only love people because they give you birthday presents--" "But I don't--I don't--really and truly--" "You didn't ought to have no more birthdays," said Jenny, "if they make you cry." Why couldn't they see that crying meant that she wanted Papa to be sacred and holy every day? The day after the birthday when Papa went about the same as ever, looking big and frightening, when he "Baa'd" into her face and called out, "Mary had a little lamb!" and "Mary, Mary, quite contrary," she looked after him sorrowfully and thought: "Papa gave me my lamb." IX. One day Uncle Edward and Aunt Bella came over from Chadwell Grange. They were talking to Mamma a long time in the drawing-room, and when she came in they stopped and whispered. Roddy told her the secret. Uncle Edward was going to give her a live lamb. Mark and Dank said it couldn't be true. Uncle Edward was not a real uncle; he was only Aunt Bella's husband, and he never gave you anything. And anyhow the lamb wasn't born yet and couldn't come for weeks and weeks. Every morning she asked, "Has my new lamb come? When is it coming? Do you think it will come to-day?" She could keep on sitting still quite a long time by merely thinking about the new lamb. It would run beside her when she played in the garden. It would eat grass out of her hand. She would tie a ribbon round its neck and lead it up and down the lane. At these moments she forgot the toy lamb. It stood on the chest of drawers in the nursery, looking off into the corners of the room, neglected. By the time Uncle Edward and Aunt Bella sent for her to come and see the lamb, she knew exactly what it would be like and what would happen. She saw it looking like the lambs in the Bible Picture Book, fat, and covered with thick, pure white wool. She saw Uncle Edward, with his yellow face and big nose and black whiskers, coming to her across the lawn at Chadwell Grange, carrying the lamb over his shoulder like Jesus. It was a cold morning. They drove a long time in Uncle Edward's carriage, over the hard, loud roads, between fields white with frost, and Uncle Edward was not on his lawn. Aunt Bella stood in the big hall, waiting for them. She looked much larger and more important than Mamma. "Aunt Bella, have you got my new lamb?" She tried not to shriek it out, because Aunt Bella was nearly always poorly, and Mamma told her that if you shrieked at her she would be ill. Mamma said "Sh-sh-sh!" And Aunt Bella whispered something and she heard Mamma answer, "Better not." "If she _sees_ it," said Aunt Bella, "she'll understand." Mamma shook her head at Aunt Bella. "Edward would like it," said Aunt Bella. "He wanted to give it her himself. It's _his_ present."