Adela were obliged to say, "Our birthday is almost all over," why then,
that was just the very time when Mother Fisher and the little doctor
(for he was in the plan, you may be very sure, only he wanted her to
make all the arrangements, "It's more in a woman's way, my dear," he
had said),--well, then, that was their turn to celebrate the double
birthday!

"Where are those girls?" cried the little doctor, fidgeting about, and
knocking down a little table in his prancing across the room. Jasper
ran and picked it up. "No harm done," he declared, setting the books
straight again.

"O dear, did I knock that over?" asked Dr. Fisher, whirling around to
look at the result of his progress. "Bless me, did I really do that?"

"It's all right now," said Jasper, with a laugh at the doctor's face.
"Lucky there wasn't anything that could break on the table."

"I should say so," declared the little doctor; "still, I'm sorry I
floored these," with a rueful hand on the books. "I'd rather smash some
other things that I know of than to hurt the feelings of a book. Dear
me!"

"So had I," agreed Jasper, "to tell you the truth; but these aren't
hurt; not a bit." He took up each volume, and carefully examined the
binding.

When he saw that this was so, the little doctor began to fidget again,
and to wonder where the girls were, and in his impatience he was on the
point of prancing off once more across the room, when Jasper said, "Let