“I’m goin’ right back up to put on m’ swallow-tail,” Peg assured him. “You’ll see me in ’bout half an hour.” Barbara knit her fine dark brows a little over the birthday book with its quaint inscription. “I shouldn’t like you to suppose that was the way to spell valuable information,” she said crisply. “Suppose we put another card over this one, dear. I’ll write it for you.” Jimmy pondered this proposal in silence for a few minutes, then he shook his head. “I want my book to be ’zactly like Peg’s,” he said firmly. “It’s a val’able inf’mation book; that’s what it is.” He kept it by him all the while they were eating their supper off the pink and white china Grandfather Embury brought from foreign parts, while the seven candles cast bright lights and wavering shadows across the table on the boy’s rosy little face and the girl’s darker beauty. “Peg’s comin’ in’s soon’s he puts on his swallow-tail,” said Jimmy placidly. “I like Peg better’n anybody, ’ceptin’ you, Barb’ra. He’s so durned square.” “You shouldn’t say such words, Jimmy,” Barbara said, with a vexed pucker between her brows. “You must remember that you are a gentleman.” “So is Peg a gentleman,” said Jimmy, valiantly ready to do battle for his friend. “An’ he says durned.” Barbara shook her head impatiently at the child. “If you say that word again, Jimmy,” she threatened, “I shall be obliged to forbid you going out to the barn at all.” “I guess you don’t mean that, Barb’ra,” the little boy said firmly. “Course I have to go out to the barn; but I promise I won’t say durned ’cept when I plough.” A sound of hard knuckles cautiously applied to the back kitchen door announced Mr. Morrison, attired in his best suit of rusty black, his abundant iron-gray hair, ordinarily standing up around his ruddy, good-humored face like a halo, severely plastered down with soap and water. “Good-evenin’, Cap’n,” he said ceremoniously, “I hope you fin’ yourself in good health on this ’ere auspicious occasion, sir; an’ you, too, Miss Barb’ry, as a near relation of the Cap’n’s. I hope I see you well an’—an’ happy, ma’am.” “See my cake, Peg,” shouted Jimmy, capering wildly about the old man. “See the candles!” Peg pretended to shade his eyes from the overpowering illumination. “Wall, now, I mus’ say!” he exclaimed. “If that ain’t wo’th coverin’ ten miles o’ bad goin’ t’ see. That cert’nly is a han’some cake, Miss Barb’ry, an’ the Cap’n here tells me you made it.” Barbara smiled, rather sadly. “Yes,” she said, “I made it. If you’ll blow out the candles now, Jimmy, I’ll cut it and we’ll each have a piece.” The little boy climbed up in his chair. “I have to sit down when I blow,” he said seriously, and sent the first current of air across the table from his puckered lips. “One of ’em’s out!” he announced triumphantly.