This statement was unanimously acceded to by all persons connected with the feast.

All the afternoon the girls had worked over the decorations.  The garden was strung with lanterns much more beautiful and artistic in design than any that ever reach America; and the house, under the supervision of Onoye and her mother, was made beautiful with the splendid iris in all its varying shades from deep purple to pale mauve.  Among their long, slender, delicate leaves the flowers seemed to be growing in the shallow dishes in which devices of soft lead held them in place.

“Are we entertaining a family of sons this evening or have we just decided to celebrate whether we have sons or not?” asked Mr. Campbell, greeting his daughter on the piazza.

“We are entertaining for our only son, the most promising and delightful young man in the entire universe,” answered Billie, kissing him.

“I always thought you were a singularly fortunate young man, Duncan,” remarked Miss Campbell, “but I shall no longer attribute it entirely to industry, intelligence and good looks.”

“What’s the reason, then, Cousin Helen?” asked Mr. Campbell, laughing.

“Why, have you forgotten, boy, that this is your birthday?  Forty-five years old, and you don’t remember it!”

“I did forget it,” said Mr. Campbell, “but I don’t see where the luck comes in.”

They explained the meaning of the Boys’ Festival and the lucky coincidence that had brought him into the world on that auspicious day.

“Go in now and get dressed, for the Widow of Shanghai will be arriving pretty soon and other company besides,” ordered Billie.

The girls had dressed early and their pretty summer frocks gleamed softly against the green of the shrubbery as they flitted about the garden and the lawn in the twilight.  Nancy was wearing her first train that night; it was only a wee bit of a train, nothing regal and sweeping; but it gave her a secret thrill to throw it over one arm, displaying her lace trimmed petticoat underneath, while she tripped along the garden path.  The dress was of pink batiste and delicate lace, and from the round neck her throat rose soft and white like a column.  She was the first of the four friends to wear a train.  Even Elinor, tall and slender in her white lingerie frock, had not aspired to that dignity.  Billie was wearing her best blue mulle that became her mightily because it was near the shade of her blue-gray eyes, and little Mary was dressed in one of the dainty muslin frocks that her mother excelled in making.

“They are no longer little girls,” thought Miss Campbell, rather sadly, it must be confessed.  She was sitting in a long-chair on the piazza watching her four charges flit about the lawn.  “They are almost young ladies now, and how pretty they are, too; each is so different from the other and each charming in her own way.  Billie, I think, is too much of a tomboy to worry about yet.  Elinor is far too dignified; Mary is too shy.  But I feel I shall have to keep a sharp eye on Nancy.  Those blue eyes of hers are simply wells of coquetry.  I believe the child would flirt with a stone.  I doubt if half the time she realizes herself how eloquent she can make them.  Little mischief!”