drop behind the black-walnut
rod to which they were bound. It had been given her by her teacher at
the Bible Class,--Mrs. Ingleside; and Ruth loved Mrs. Ingleside very
much.

Then she went to her bureau, and put her stockings in their drawer,
and set the little basket, with its cotton-ball and darner, and
maplewood egg, and small sharp scissors, on the top; and then she went
and sat down by the window, in her white considering-chair.

For she had something to think about this morning.

Ruth's room had three doors. It was the middle room up stairs, in the
beginning of the L. Mrs. Holabird's opened into it from the front, and
just opposite her door another led into the large, light corner room
at the end, which Rosamond and Barbara occupied. Stephen's was on the
other side of the three-feet passage which led straight through from
the front staircase to the back of the house. The front staircase was
a broad, low-stepped, old-fashioned one, with a landing half-way up;
and it was from this landing that a branch half-flight came into the
L, between these two smaller bedrooms. Now I have begun, I may as well
tell you all about it; for, if you are like me, you will be glad to be
taken fairly into a house you are to pay a visit in, and find out all
the pleasantnesses of it, and whom they especially belong to.

Ruth's room was longest across the house, and Stephen's with it;
behind his was only the space taken by some closets and the square of
staircase beyond. This staircase had landings also, and was lighted by
a window high up in the wall. Behind Ruth's, as I have said, was the
whole depth of a large apartment. But as the passage divided the L
unequally, it gave the rooms similar space and shape, only at right
angles to each other.

The sun came into Stephen's room in the morning, and into Ruth's in
the afternoon; in the middle of the day the passage was one long
shine, from its south window at the end, right through,--except in
such days as these, that were too deep in the summer to bear it, and
then the green blinds were shut all around, and the warm wind drew
through pleasantly in a soft shade.

When we brought our furniture from the house in the town, the large
front rooms and the open halls used it up so, that it seemed as if
there were hardly anything left but bedsteads and washstands and
bureaus,--the very things that make up-stairs look so _very_ bedroomy.
And we wanted pretty places to sit in, as girls always