Under the long white arch she rode, with the fallen blossoms white at her feet.

The pewees called from the cedars and the fat red-breasted robins ran across the lawn just as they had done the spring before, when it was her eleventh birthday, and she had ridden along that same way singing, the happiest hearted child in the Valley.

But she was not singing to-day.

Another sob came up in her throat as she thought of the difference.
"Now I'm a whole yeah oldah," she sighed.

"Oh, deah! I don't want to grow up, one bit, and I'll be suah 'nuff old on my next birthday, for I'll be in my teens then.