on the eighth. It was Mamma's birthday, you know," she added in a
lower voice.

So it was settled. "How delicious!" cried Clover, skipping about and
clapping her hands: "I never, never, never _did_ hear of anything so
perfectly lovely. Papa, when are you coming down stairs? I want to speak
to you _dreadfully_."

"Right away--rather than have my coat-tails pulled off," answered Dr.
Carr, laughing, and they went away together. Katy sat looking out of the
window in a peaceful, happy mood.

"Oh!" she thought, "can it really be? Is School going to 'let out,' just
as Cousin Helen's hymn said? Am I going to 'Bid a sweet good-bye to
Pain?' But there was Love in the Pain. I see it now. How good the dear
Teacher has been to me!"

Clover seemed to be very busy all the rest of that week. She was "having
windows washed," she said, but this explanation hardly accounted for her
long absences, and the mysterious exultation on her face, not to mention
certain sounds of hammering and sawing which came from down stairs. The
other children had evidently been warned to say nothing; for once or
twice Philly broke out with, "Oh, Katy!" and then hushed himself up,
saying, "I 'most forgot!" Katy grew very curious. But she saw that the
secret, whatever it was, gave immense satisfaction to everybody except
herself; so, though she longed to know, she concluded not to spoil the
fun by asking any questions.

At last it wanted but one day of the important occasion.