"Now, we must write 'Happy Birthday' on the backs of 'em," said Budge, exploring his pockets, and extracting a stump of a lead-pencil. "Now," continued Budge, leaning over the card, and displaying all the facial contortions of the unpracticed writer, as he laboriously printed, in large letters, speaking, as he worked, a letter at a time: "H--A--P--P--E B--U--R--F--D--A--Happy Birthday. Now, you must hold the pencil for yours, or else it won't be so sweet--that's what mamma says." Toddie took the pencil in his pudgy hand, and Budge guided the hand; and two juvenile heads touched each other, and swayed, and twisted, and bobbed in unison until the work was completed. "Now, I think she ought to come," said Budge. (Breakfast time was still more than an hour distant.) "Why, the rising-bell hasn't rung yet! Let's ring it!" The boys fought for possession of the bell; but superior might conquered, and Budge marched up and down the hall, ringing with the enthusiasm and duration peculiar to the amateur. "Bless me!" exclaimed Mrs. Burton, hastening to complete her toilet. "How time does fly--sometimes!" Mr. Burton saw something in his wife's face that seemed to call for lover-like treatment; but it was not without a sense of injury that he exclaimed, immediately after, as he drew forth his watch: "I declare! I would make an affidavit that we hadn't been awake half an hour. Ah! I forgot to wind up my watch last night." The boys hurried into the parlor. "I hear 'em trampin' around!" exclaimed Budge, in great excitement. "There!--the piano's shut! Isn't that _too_ mean! Oh, _I'll_ tell you--here's Uncle Harry's violin." "Then whatsh _I_ goin' to play on?" asked Toddie, dancing frantically about. "Wait a minute," said Budge, dropping the violin, and hurrying to the floor above, from which he speedily returned with a comb. A bound volume of the _Portfolio_ lay upon the table, and opening this, Badge tore the tissue paper from one of the etchings and wrapped the comb in it. "There!" said he, "you fiddle an' I'll blow the comb. Goodness! why _don't_ they come down? Oh, we forgot to put pennies under the plate, and we don't know how many years old to put 'em for." "An' we ain't got no pennies," said Toddie. "_I_ know," said Budge, hurrying to a cabinet in a drawer of which his uncle kept the nucleus of a collection of American coinage. "This kind of pennies," Budge continued, "isn't so pretty as our kind, but they're bigger, an' they'll look better on a table-cloth. Now, how old do you think she is?" "I dunno," said Toddie, going into a reverie of hopeless conjecture. "She's about as big as you and me put togevver." "Well," said Budge, "you're four an' I'm six, an' four an' six is ten--I guess ten'll be about the thing."