So he stammered, "I--I know M--Miss Hallie, she's nineteen this Satiddy, an' I'll be nine next Satiddy." Miss Sally Lou laughed so gaily that her young cavalier made another effort to please her.
"Is that so!" he exclaimed, as if surprised.

"It's a mighty lucky thing you told me that, now, or I never would have thought to bring you anything.

You didn't know that I am a sort of birthday Santa Claus, did you?
Just look out for me next Saturday.

If I'm not there by breakfast-time, wait till noon, and if I don't get there by that time it'll be because something has happened; anyway, somebody'll be prancing along about sundown." "Oh, come along, Raleigh," said Miss Sally Lou, moving off toward the house.

"You're such a tease." John Jay, sitting beside that wonderful fountain and surrounded by so many strange, beautiful things, did not think it at all queer that such an unheard-of person as a birthday Santa Claus should suddenly step out from the midst of the enchantment and speak to him.
"A blue velvet cape on," he said to himself, thinking how he should describe him to Bud.