game, and disregarding the large, ostentatious brown-papered thing,
he went magnificently for the two small incoherent bundles.

He opened them. A flat green table-centre with a red pattern of
roses, a thick table-napkin ring worked in yellow worsted, these
were revealed.

"Oh!" he cried, "just what I wanted." (Father always said that on
his birthday.)

"Is it?" said Mary and Helen.

"Mine's the ring," said Mary. "It's dirty rather, but it would have
got dirty, anyway, afterwards." She watched anxiously to see whether
he preferred Helen's.

He watched them nervously, lest he should be expected to kiss them.
He wiped his mouth with his hand instead, and began rapidly to talk:

"Jampot will know now which mine is. She's always giving me the
wrong one. I'll have it always, and the green thing too."

"It's for the middle of a table," Helen interrupted.

"Yes, I know," said Jeremy hurriedly. "I'll always have it too--like
Mary's--when I'm grown up and all. . . . I say, shall I open the
other one now?"

"Yes, you can," said Helen and Mary, ceasing to take the central
place in the ceremony, spectators now and eagerly excited.