e their fathers and mothers again. While after
the first week or two none of the girls were homesick, and all were
very happy, yet there was not one of them who had not a little square
of paper near the head of her bed, with as many marks upon it as there
were days before vacation began, and every morning the first thing they
did was to scratch one of these marks off. So Sunday seemed a long
step ahead when they looked back over seven days that had passed.

Agnes and Ruby generally spent the leisure part of Sunday afternoon
with Miss Ketchum. She was very fond of the little girls, and liked to
have them come and see her, so they had a very pleasant time in her
room.

They would save their bags of candy, instead of eating them on
Saturday, and Miss Ketchum would have a nice little plain cake, of
which her little visitors were very fond, and then they would take down
the dishes and have a very nice time.

While they were enjoying the good things Miss Ketchum would read to
them, or they would see which could tell her the most about the
extracts they had written from the sermon. They had such pleasant
times with her that they were always sorry when the boll rang for Bible
class, and they had to say good-by and run away.

Altogether, Sunday was a very happy day at Miss Chapman's, not only to
Ruby and Agnes, but to all the other scholars, and they were always
ready to welcome it.

CHAPTER XXIII.

GETTING READY FOR CHRISTMAS.

All the girls had a great deal of Christmas preparation. In the
evenings they were busy making their Christmas presents for their
friends at home, and Ruby was delighted when her Aunt Emma taught her
how to knit wristlets. She was very proud when she had finished the
first pair for her mother. They had pretty red edges and the rest was
knitted of chinchilla wool.

Perhaps you would laugh at Ruby if I should tell you quite how much she
admired them. When she first began to knit she wished that she need
not practise nor study nor do anything else, she enjoyed her new
occupation so much; and she carried her wristlet around in her pocket,
wrapped up in a piece of paper, so that it should not become soiled,
and every little while she would take it out and look at it lovingly.

She could imagine her mother's surprise and pleasure when she should
give them to her, and tell her that her little girl had knitted every
stitch of them for her. There were a great many stitches in the
wristl