happened, and Mr. Darcy, following, picked up from the wreck the only
piece of the lamp not shattered to bits by the fall. It was one of the
prisms, which in some miraculous way had survived the crash, a beautiful
crystal pendant without a single nick or crack.

He picked it up and rubbed his coat sleeve down each of its three sides,
and when he held it up to the light it sent a ripple of rainbows dancing
across the shop. He watched them, pleased as a child; and when Mrs.
Yates, loud in her complaints of Grandpa, came with broom and dustpan to
sweep up the litter, he bargained with her for the prism.

That is how he happened to have an offering for Georgina's birthday when
he reached the house a couple of hours later, not knowing that it was her
birthday. Nobody had remembered it, Barby being gone.

It seemed to Georgina the forlornest day she had ever opened her eyes
upon. The very fact that it was gloriously sunny with a delicious summer
breeze ruffling the harbor and sending the white sails scudding along
like wings, made her feel all the more desolate. She was trying her best
to forget what day it was, but there wasn't much to keep her mind off the
subject. Even opportunities for helping Tippy were taken away, for Belle
had come to stay during Barby's absence, and she insisted on doing what
Georgina otherwise would have done.

If Barby had been at home there would have been no piano practice on such
a gala occasion as a tenth birthday. There would have been no time for it
in the program of joyful happenings. But because time dragged, Georgina
went to her scales and five-finger exercises as usual. With the hour-
glass on the piano beside her, she practised not only her accustomed
time, till the sand had run half through, but until all but a quarter of