Part 20 (2/2)

It was a pretty little white sacque with a rose-colored border, and it was so very pretty that Ruby made up her mind that after Christmas, when she should not have so much to do, she would make another just like it for her own doll. The hood was made to match the sacque, and Ruby could hardly wait for Christmas to come when she thought of the happiness her gifts would give. She was impatient to hear Ruthy exclaim with admiration over the beautiful sacque and hood, and to see how proud her father and mother would be when she slipped the wristlets upon their hands, and told them that she had taken every st.i.tch for them with her own fingers.

But besides these home preparations, there was to be a little entertainment given at Christmas by the scholars, to which some of the people of the village were always invited, besides the friends of the day-scholars, and those of the boarding-scholars who could come. This entertainment was given the evening before the girls left for their Christmas holidays, so very often their parents came a day earlier to take them home, in order to be present at this entertainment.

It was given to show the improvement of the scholars during the term, and all the girls had some part to take in it.

To some of them this was a great trial, but Ruby delighted in showing off, and she was perfectly happy when she found that she was to take part three times. It added to her pleasure to have her father write that he would surely be there, for he was coming to bring her home, as Aunt Emma was going somewhere else for her Christmas holidays. So Ruby practised and studied with all her might, as happy and as good a little girl as you could find anywhere, enjoying school-life more every day.

Ruby was to play the ba.s.s part in a duet with one of the older girls, and she had taken lessons such a little while that this seemed a very great thing to her. She was always ready to practise, so that she should be sure to know her part perfectly, and she went about the house humming the tune, until Aunt Emma declared laughingly that she fully expected to hear Ruby singing it in her sleep.

Besides this, Ruby was to recite a piece alone, and to take part in a dialogue; so you can see that she had quite a good deal to do. She would have been quite willing to do more, however, and she looked forward very eagerly to the evening of the entertainment.

The dialogue was quite a long one, and Ruby studied it every morning while she was getting dressed, pretending that her aunt and the stove were the other two characters in the piece. To be sure, neither of them said anything, for Aunt Emma was busy getting dressed, and the stove was silent, of course; but Ruby knew what they should say, for she had studied the piece so much that she knew the other parts nearly as well as her own; so she said for them what should be said when their part came, and then repeated her own speeches. There was no danger that Ruby would not be fully prepared when the great evening came.

It did not seem possible, now that she looked backward, that she had really been away from home so long. Each day had been so full of duties and pleasures, and had pa.s.sed so rapidly, that they had gone almost before Ruby knew that they had commenced, and now there were only very few marks left to be scratched out upon the girls' calendars.

Ruby was very sorry for Agnes. Her mother lived so far away that it was not possible for her to go home until the long summer vacation came, so Agnes had to spend her Christmas at school.

The teachers did all they could to make the day a happy one for her, and her mother sent her a box of presents, but still that was not of course anything like a home Christmas, and it generally made Agnes feel very badly when she heard the other girls talking about the good times they expected to have at Christmas.

”It is n't only the parties and the Christmas trees and the good times,” she said to Ruby one day. ”It is being away from mother that is the hardest part of it all. I always put her picture on the table when I open the box and look at the presents she has sent me, and try to pretend that she is giving them to me; but it is n't of much use. I know all the time that she is hundreds of miles away, and that she wants to see me just as much as I want to see her.”

It was just one week before Christmas that a very beautiful idea came into Ruby's mind, and she was so pleased that she jumped up and spun around like a top, and caught Agnes by the waist and made her spin around, too, until both the little girls tumbled down in a heap on the floor.

”Why, Ruby, are you crazy?” asked Agnes, laughingly. They had been sitting before the fire in Miss Ketchum's room, eating chestnuts and talking about the evening of the entertainment, and both of the girls had been quiet for a little while, Agnes thinking how much she would like to have her mother at the school that night, and Ruby thinking of the pleasure with which she would watch her father while she was reciting her piece, when all at once she jumped up in this state of excitement.

[Ill.u.s.tration: READING THE INVITATION TO AGNES (missing from book)]

”What is the matter?” asked Agnes again; but Ruby would n't tell her.

”It is just the most beautiful idea in all the world,” she exclaimed; ”but it is something about you, Agnes, and I don't want to tell you until I am quite sure how it is going to turn out. No, you need n't ask me. I shall not tell you one single word of it. I can keep a secret when I want to, and I don't mean to tell you this one. I will only tell you that if it turns out all right you will like it as much as I do, I think. Oh, I am so full of it that I must go over and tell Aunt Emma about it; but you must not ask me to tell you, for indeed I will not.”

And Ruby did not, although you may imagine that Agnes was very curious to know what it could be over which Ruby was so excited, and which concerned herself.

Ruby would only answer, ”Wait and see.”

It had occurred to her that perhaps her mother would be willing to let her invite Agnes to come home with her for her Christmas holidays.

Ruby knew that her mother was very much better now, and she was almost sure that she would not feel as if company would tire her too much.

Ruby and Agnes had been such friends, and Ruby had told Agnes so much about her home and mother and Ruthy, that she was sure that next best to going to her own home and seeing her own mother, would be going to Ruby's home and spending Christmas with Ruby's mother.

Aunt Emma thought that it was a very nice plan, and Ruby wrote that very afternoon to ask her mother about it.

It seemed to the impatient little girl as if the answer would never come; and every day she watched when the mail came to see if there was a letter for her; but in three days it came, and she was delighted to find that a little letter was enclosed for Agnes, giving her a very cordial invitation to come home with Ruby to spend her Christmas holidays.

Ruby's mother was very much pleased with the idea, and glad that her little daughter had thought of inviting her lonely schoolmate home with her; and if anything could have made Ruby happier than she was already, it was her mother's approval of her plan.

You may be sure that Agnes was delighted. It seemed almost too good to be true, at first; and when she read the kind letter from Ruby's mother, and Miss Chapman gave her permission to accept the invitation, she began to look forward to the holidays quite as eagerly as any of the other girls.

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