“Mother's a-changing of herself,” he said. “Down in a minute,” a voice sounded down the narrow, freshly scrubbed stairs. The children waited. Next moment the stairs creaked and Mrs. Perks came down, buttoning her bodice. Her hair was brushed very smooth and tight, and her face shone with soap and water. “I'm a bit late changing, Miss,” she said to Bobbie, “owing to me having had a extry clean-up to-day, along o' Perks happening to name its being his birthday. I don't know what put it into his head to think of such a thing. We keeps the children's birthdays, of course; but him and me--we're too old for such like, as a general rule.” “We knew it was his birthday,” said Peter, “and we've got some presents for him outside in the perambulator.” As the presents were being unpacked, Mrs. Perks gasped. When they were all unpacked, she surprised and horrified the children by sitting suddenly down on a wooden chair and bursting into tears. “Oh, don't!” said everybody; “oh, please don't!” And Peter added, perhaps a little impatiently: “What on earth is the matter? You don't mean to say you don't like it?” Mrs. Perks only sobbed. The Perks children, now as shiny-faced as anyone could wish, stood at the wash-house door, and scowled at the intruders. There was a silence, an awkward silence. “DON'T you like it?” said Peter, again, while his sisters patted Mrs. Perks on the back. She stopped crying as suddenly as she had begun. “There, there, don't you mind me. I'M all right!” she said. “Like it? Why, it's a birthday such as Perks never 'ad, not even when 'e was a boy and stayed with his uncle, who was a corn chandler in his own account. He failed afterwards. Like it? Oh--” and then she went on and said all sorts of things that I won't write down, because I am sure that Peter and Bobbie and Phyllis would not like me to. Their ears got hotter and hotter, and their faces redder and redder, at the kind things Mrs. Perks said. They felt they had done nothing to deserve all this praise. At last Peter said: “Look here, we're glad you're pleased. But if you go on saying things like that, we must go home. And we did want to stay and see if Mr. Perks is pleased, too. But we can't stand this.” “I won't say another single word,” said Mrs. Perks, with a beaming face, “but that needn't stop me thinking, need it? For if ever--” “Can we have a plate for the buns?” Bobbie asked abruptly. And then Mrs. Perks hastily laid the table for tea, and the buns and the honey and the gooseberries were displayed on plates, and the roses were put in two glass jam jars, and the tea-table looked, as Mrs. Perks said, “fit for a Prince.” “To think!” she said, “me getting the place tidy early, and the little 'uns getting the wild-flowers and all--when never did I think there'd be anything more for him except the ounce of his pet particular that I got o' Saturday and been saving up for 'im ever since. Bless us! 'e IS early!”