Aunt Emma was often at Ravensnest, and the children learned to love her better and better, so that even wild little Olly would remember to bring her stool, and carry her shawl, and change her plate at dinner; and Milly, who was always clinging to somebody, was constantly puzzled to know whose pocket to sit in, mother’s or Aunt Emma’s.

Then there was the farmyard, the cows, and the milking, and the chickens.  Everything about them seemed delightful to Milly and Olly, and the top of everything was reached when one evening John Backhouse mounted both the children on his big carthorse Dobbin, and they and Dobbin together dragged the hay home in triumph.

And now they had only one week more to stay at Ravensnest.  But that week was a most important week, for it was to contain no less a day than Milly’s birthday.  Milly would be seven years old on the 15th of July, and for about a week before the 15th, Milly’s little head could think of nothing else.  Olly too was very much excited about it, for though Milly of course was the queen of the day, and all the presents were for her, not for him, still it was good times for everybody on Milly’s birthday; besides which, he had his own little secret with mother about his present to Milly, a secret which made him very happy, but which he was on the point of telling at least a hundred times a day.

“Father,” said Milly, about four days before the birthday, when they were all wandering about after tea one evening in the high garden which was now a paradise of ripe red strawberries and fruit of every kind, “does everybody have birthdays?  Do policemen have birthdays?”

“I expect so, Milly,” said Mr. Norton, laughing, “but they haven’t any time to remember them.”

“But, father, what’s the good of having birthdays if you don’t keep them, and have presents and all that?  And do cats and dogs have birthdays?  I should like to find out Spot’s birthday.  We’d give her cream instead of milk, you know, and I’d tie a blue ribbon round her neck, and one round her tail like the queen’s sheep in mother’s story.”

“I don’t suppose Spot would thank you at all,” said Mr. Norton.  “The cream would make her ill, and the ribbon would fidget her dreadfully till she pulled it off.”

“Oh dear!” sighed Milly.  “Well, I suppose Spot had better not have any birthday then.  But, father, what do you think?  Becky and Tiza don’t care about their birthdays a bit.  Becky could hardly remember when hers was, and they never have any presents unless Aunt Emma gives them one, or people to tea, or anything.’

“Well, you see, Milly, when people have only just pennies and shillings enough to buy bread and meat to eat, and clothes to put on, they can’t go spending money on presents; and when they’re very anxious and busy all the year round they can’t be remembering birthdays and taking pains about them like richer people can, who have less to trouble them, and whose work does not take up quite so much time.”