When lunch-time came, it was so lonely eating by herself in the big dining-room, that she hurried through the meal as quickly as possible, and tiptoed up the stairs to the door of her mother’s room.  Mom Beck raised her finger with a warning “Sh!” and seeing that her mother was still asleep, Lloyd stole away to her own room, her own pretty pink and white nest, and curled herself up among the cushions in a big easy chair by the window.

It was the first time in her memory that her mother had been ill.  For more than a week she had not been able to leave her room, and the lonely child, accustomed to being with her constantly, crept around the house like a little stray kitten.  The place scarcely seemed like home, and the days were endless.  Some unusual feeling of sensitiveness had kept her from reminding the family of her birthday.  Other years she had openly counted the days, for weeks beforehand, and announced the gifts that she would be most pleased to receive.

Here by the window the dismal crow thoughts began flocking down to her again, and to drive them away she picked up a book from the table and began to read.  It was a green and gold volume of short stories, one that she had read many times before, but she never grew tired of them.

The one she liked best was “Marguerite’s Wonder-ball,” and she turned to that first, because it was the story of a happy birthday.  Marguerite was a little German girl, learning to knit, and to help her in her task her family wound for her a mammoth ball of yarn, as full of surprise packages as a plum cake is of plums.  Day by day, as her patient knitting unwound the yarn, some gift dropped out into her lap.  They were simple things, nearly all of them.  A knife, a ribbon, a thimble, a pencil, and here and there a bonbon, but they were magnified by the charm of the surprise, and they turned the tedious task into a pleasant pastime.  Not until her birthday was the knitting finished, and as she took the last stitches a little velvet-covered jewel-box fell out.  In the jewel-box was a string of pearls that had belonged to Marguerite’s great-great-grandmother.  It was a precious family heirloom, and although Marguerite could not wear the necklace until she was old enough to go to her first great court ball, it made her very proud and happy to think that, of all the grandchildren in the family, she had been chosen as the one to wear her great-great-grandmother’s name that means pearl, and had inherited on that account the beautiful Von Behren necklace.

When the knitting was done there was a charming birthday feast in her honour.  They crowned her with flowers, and every one, even the dignified old grandfather, did her bidding until nightfall, because it was her day, and she was its queen.