ng snip, snip all around
your neck, just where they would cut great pieces out if you dared
move, I don't believe you would like that yourself, Ruthy Warren, even
if she did give you things for your doll."

"No, I don't s'pose I would like it any better than you do," assented
Ruthy, who was determined not to quarrel with her little friend, when
they were so soon to be separated.

"Ruby, Miss Abigail wants you," called Aunt Emma.

Ruby made a wry face.

"There she is again," she exclaimed. "It's just the way the whole
livelong time. I think if she knew how to make dresses, she ought not
to have to fit so much. If I fitted my doll so often when I made her a
dress, I guess her head would fall off. It would get shaky anyway,
with so much fussing. Wait till I come back, Ruthy, and then we will
play."

Miss Abigail was waiting to fit Ruby's blue delaine, and it looked so
pretty that Ruby forgot how unwilling she had been to come in and have
it fitted.

She showed her pleasure in it so plainly that good Miss Abigail was
afraid that the little girl was in danger of becoming vain, and thought
it best to warn her against this state of mind.

"I am afraid it is n't the best thing for you, Ruby Warren, to have so
many new clothes all at once," she said, with the row of pins waving up
and down, as she spoke through her teeth, which she did not open when
she spoke, lest the pins should fall out. "If any one thinks more of
clothes than they should, then dress is a snare and a temptation to
them, and I am much afraid that that is what it is going to be to you.
Better for you to have only one dress to your back than to put clothes
in the wrong place in your mind, and let them make you vain and
conceited. What are clothes, anyway? There is n't any thing to be so
proud of in them. Now this nice wool delaine was once growing on a
sheep's back. Do you suppose that sheep was vain because it was
covered with wool? No, it never thought anything about it. And so you
see that you ought n't to be proud of it either."

"I think new dresses are very nice," said Ruby, speaking cautiously,
lest she should inadvertently turn her head, and the sharp points of
the scissors should run into her neck.

Miss Abigail felt that she must say still more, for it was evident that
Ruby was putting too much value upon her dress.

"But it is n't new," she said.

"Oh, Miss Abigail, it truly is," exclaimed Ruby, forgetting herself and
turnin