"Morning, mamma and papa. It's my birthday; and I'm six years
old,--six, six years old! One, two, three, four, five, six years old!
Susan told them all to me, and Susan said she guessed papa didn't
forgotten it. She didn't forgotten it; and see!"
The child held up a gay horn of sugar-plums fluttering with ribbons,
and then, hugging it to her breast with one hand, plunged the other
in, and offered a little fistful of the comfits, first to her
father, and then to her mother. Both smilingly declined the treat,
explaining that they had but just done breakfast: and the young
lady, dropping some back into the horn, thrust the rest into her own
mouth, saying, "So has I; but I like candy all the day."
"Come here, you little Sunshine," said Mr. Legrange, drawing her
toward him. "So Susie thought I hadn't forgotten your birthday, eh?
Well, do you know what they always do to people on their birthdays?"
"Give 'em presents," replied the child promptly, as she desperately
swallowed the mouthful of candy.
"Ho, ho! that's it is it? No; but, besides that, they always pull
their ears as many times as they are years old. Now, then, don't you
wish I had forgotten it?"
Sunshine's eyes grew a little larger, and travelled swiftly toward
her mother's face, coming back to her father's with a smile.
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