dressed in childish costume, but with all her beauty intensified by
the condensation: for the blue eyes were as large and clear, and
even deeper in their tint; the clustering hair was of a brighter
gold; and the fair skin pearlier in its whiteness, and richer in its
rosiness; while the gay exuberance of life, glowing and sparkling
from every curve and dimple of the child's face and figure, was,
even in the happy mother's face, somewhat dimmed by the shadows that
still must fall upon every life past its morning, be it never so
happy, or never so prosperous.

"Morning, mamma and papa. It's my birthday; and I'm six years
old,--six, six years old! One, two, three, four, five, six years old!
Susan told them all to me, and Susan said she guessed papa didn't
forgotten it. She didn't forgotten it; and see!"

The child held up a gay horn of sugar-plums fluttering with ribbons,
and then, hugging it to her breast with one hand, plunged the other
in, and offered a little fistful of the comfits, first to her
father, and then to her mother. Both smilingly declined the treat,
explaining that they had but just done breakfast: and the young
lady, dropping some back into the horn, thrust the rest into her own
mouth, saying, "So has I; but I like candy all the day."

"Come here, you little Sunshine," said Mr. Legrange, drawing her
toward him. "So Susie thought I hadn't forgotten your birthday, eh?
Well, do you know what they always do to people on their birthdays?"

"Give 'em presents," replied the child promptly, as she desperately
swallowed the mouthful of candy.