“Oh, I could eat ice cream every day in the year,” laughed Connie. Her blue eyes twinkled as she added: “Especially on my birthday.”

Now Connie’s birthday came on the twelfth day of December. The date was very near, and she was a tiny bit afraid her mother and father might forget about it. So she thought she would mention it just to be sure.

“Will I have ice cream and cake on my birthday?” she asked.

“We’ll see,” returned her mother. She smiled in a most mysterious way.

The next day, Mrs. Williams did not say anything more about the approaching birthday. She acted as if she had entirely forgotten it.

At school, although all of the Brownies were there, Veve’s desk remained vacant.

Connie learned from Sunny and Jane that Veve had been kept home because she had a very severe cold.

“Serves her right,” said Jane, who had heard about the coasting mishap. “If she had used good32 common sense, she wouldn’t have been carried away on the sled!”

32

“Veve didn’t mean to get into trouble,” Connie defended her friend. “She’s just careless.”

Veve’s cold kept her indoors throughout the entire week. But on Saturday, the first day she was allowed outside, she came running over to play with Connie.

But Connie was on her way to Jane’s house to attend the regular weekly Brownie meeting and could not stop even to talk.

“I wish I could play with you, Veve,” she said. “You know how it is. We aren’t supposed to be late for meetings.”

“I know how it is, all right,” grumbled Veve. “I never see you any more—that’s what. Since you joined those stupid old Brownies, you’re no fun at all!”

“I’m having more fun than I ever did,” Connie called over her shoulder as she skipped off down the street.

At Jane’s house, the Brownies again were working on scrapbooks for the hospital.

Miss Gordon, however, had varied the program with another of her frequent “surprises.”

Captain Frank Bentley of the Rosedale Police33 Station had been invited in to explain rules of safety to 

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