enough to throw straight, they had always celebrated this double birthday with a big battle, followed by a feast in the summer-house. Hal had always defended the fort, while Drusie led the attacking party; and this year they had expected to have a really splendid fight, for during the past fortnight they had spent all their spare time in making ammunition, and the supply of cannon balls was larger than ever before.

But if Hal was not going to take part in the fight, all these preparations would be thrown away. It was really very difficult to know what he would or would not do, for he was so altered by his one term at school that he hardly seemed like the same boy. He did not tease or bully them, but he simply took as little notice as possible, and spoke to them in a lofty, superior sort of way, as though he were a very grown-up person and they very little children. Sometimes, however, he quite forgot to be dignified and condescending, and then Drusie hoped he meant to take part in the birthday fight as usual. And the awkward part of it was that Drusie could not ask him his intentions, as it was against their rules to say one word to him about the fight until the very day on which it was to take place.

"I suppose," said Helen, with a scornful little sniff, "he has grown too grand to fight. He would call it baby-play."

"What about the feast?" asked Jim. "Weren't you going to say something about that too, Drusie?"

"Oh yes," she said; and after she had drunk a little more water she rose to her feet again. The chairman was always supposed to finish the glass of water, and that was a part of her duties that Drusie did not much relish when the meeting was held before breakfast. Under pretence of moving it out of her way, Jim drew the tumbler towards him, and when she was not looking he filled it up from a jug which he had hidden under the table the evening before.

"The feast," she said earnestly, "is going to be a specially nice one. I am making all the wine myself, and I taste it ever so many times a day to see if it is still good. I won't tell you everything that is in it; but you can guess how lovely it will be when I say that it was made from apples, and pears, and prune juice, and sugar, and some tea that I saved from breakfast. There are lots of other things in it, too," she said, interrupting herself; "but that is a secret. The best of my wine is that it hasn't cost anything, and so we shall have more money to spend on other things. It is pocket-money day to-day, and it must all go towards the feast. My sixpence and yours, Jim, and Helen's and Tommy's threepences make one and sixpence. That is a lot of money, and I am sure Hal will give us his shilling."

"I don't think he will," said Jim, biting his lips to keep from laughing as he saw Drusie look down with mingled surprise and dismay at her nearly full glass; "he is hard up. He borrowed a penny half-penny from me the other day, and hasn't paid it back yet; and he told me that he had got rather a big bill in the village."

"Well," Drusie continued, after she had bravely gulped down some more water, "it doesn't matter very much if he doesn't give anything. We have plenty. And now we must vote." Tearing the sheet of paper into four pieces, she passed them round the table. "If you want to go on preparing for the fight and the feast, you must each write 'yes;' if you don't want to go on, you must write 'no.'"

Then she sat down, feeling rather proud of the clear way in which she had spoken, and made another attempt to finish her glass of water.

Without the slightest hesitation Jim scribbled the word "yes" on his piece of paper, and when Tommy saw what Jim had written he put "yes," too. Helen took longer to make up her mind. She could not help thinking that if they went on with the preparations for the fight, and Hal refused to have anything to do with it, they would look very silly. For at the bottom of her heart Helen was rather impressed by the airs that Hal gave himself, and would have liked very much to imitate them. But knowing well that the other three would vote for going on with the fight, she, too, wrote "yes," and put her folded slip with the others into the hat which Jim passed round.

The chairman opened them hastily.

"They are all 'yeses,' so we must go on with the preparations just the same," she said, rising once more to address the meeting; "and if Hal gives us his shilling after breakfast, it will mean that he is going to defend the fort. That is all, I think. I now declare this meeting ended."

"Hear, hear!" said Jim. "But you must finish your water, Drusie. We shan't think anything of you as a chairman if you leave a drop."

"I keep on drinking all the time," said poor Drusie, giving her tumbler, still nearly full, a glance of strong distaste.

"Perhaps you only sip it," said Jim gravely. "Shut your eyes, and take big mouthfuls. You must finish it, you know."

The sense of duty was strong in Drusie, and so she shut her eyes and made one more heroic effort. The instant her eyes were closed, Jim filled up her glass as she drank. He had hoped to make her finish the entire jugful, but he shook so with suppressed laughter that instead of pouring it into her glass he poured it on to her nose.

"O Jim!" she said reproachfully, as the truth burst upon her; "how much have I drunk?"

"Four tumblers full," he said triumphantly. "You make a splendid chairman, Drusie."

She couldn't help laughing, too, when she saw the nearly empty jug. She dried her face, scolded Jim, and then forgave him in the same breath, for a sweeter-tempered child than Drusie never lived. After that the meeting broke up, and a few minutes later the bell rang for breakfast.

Hal was already seated at the table when they reached the nursery. He was a nice-looking boy, taller than Drusie by a couple of inches, and well grown for his years, which would be twelve on the following Tuesday.

"Hallo!" he said, as they all trooped in; "what have you been up to? I know," he said, catching sight of the tumbler now really empty at last in Drusie's hand. "A secret meeting. You might have asked me. What was it about?"

Drusie flushed up and looked guilty. She could not tell him that the meeting had been about himself. But just then Helen interposed.

"Why, you wouldn't have cared to come," she said. "You said yesterday that secret meetings were baby things."

So he had, but it nevertheless was a pity that Helen reminded him of it just then. He had come down to breakfast that morning inclined to drop back into his old place among them, and his tone and manner were friendly and pleasant. But Helen's speech rubbed him up the wrong way at once, and in an instant he became the lofty and contemptuous school-boy brother again.

"And so they are baby things, Miss Helen," he said; "but it is rather amusing, you know, to watch babies at play. That is why I should have liked to be told of this important secret meeting in time."

That that was not the reason Drusie knew as well as he did. And he felt rather ashamed when he saw the hurt expression that came to her face. But Helen really must be taught that there was a great difference between a little girl of eight who had never been away from home in her life and a boy of twelve who had been to school. But it was not always easy to snub Helen.

"You are silly, Hal," she said. "Just because you have been to school for one term, you fancy that you are too big to play with us. Such nonsense."

Well, of course, that led to a sharp answer from Hal. Helen replied again, and a hot wrangle went on across the breakfast table.

"Come, come, Master Hal," said nurse at last—for though Helen had certainly begun this quarrel, it was generally Hal who had done so since he came home—"what would your father and