miling and courtesying to each one as she entered. A quaint
little figure she was; yet, with all her quaintness, there was enough
of dignity to suppress any merriment her appearance might have
caused.

The number and variety of these gifts was a marvel to them. When they
were fairly distributed, the Fraeulein lifted the cover of an unopened
box, and took from it a gift for every teacher.

Good, happy Fraeulein! Not a thoughtful word or a kind act from these
to you strangers in a strange land, but you have treasured in your
homesick heart, and from the Vater Land you bring to them all to-day
your grateful recognition of it all!

Perhaps the happiest of them was the lame Nellie, who, yet weak and
pale from her sickness, had with the Fraeulein's consent brought to the
Christmas-tree little pictures which she had painted in her
convalescence, as gifts to them all. She held tight to Marion's hand.
In some way, she could not have told you how, she seemed to herself to
have owed to this dear friend the ability to have painted them. It was
a little cross she gave Marion, but she had hung on it a wreath of
lovely rosebuds, meaning, through them, to convey to Marion how her
love had made the cross of her suffering beautiful.

As the vacation had commenced on the twenty-third of December, and
school did not begin again until the fifth of January, there was quite
a time remaining after the excitement of Christmas had passed.

The more scholarly and industrious of the girls remaining at the
academy at once applied themselves to making up whatever deficiencies
had occurred in their studies.

Marion found plenty to do, not only for herself, but also for Nellie,
whose lessons had necessarily run behind during her illness.

The Fraeulein found them together over their books much oftener than
she thought was for their good. Having been thoroughly educated in the
German methods of teaching, she was a firm believer in vacation
benefits, also in muscular training, which she considered quite as
essential for girls as for boys. In her imperfect English, and also by
personal illustration, she had tried, ever since her connection with
this school, to awaken the teachers, Miss Ashton in particular, to a
greater sense of its importance. To be sure, there was a gymnasium in
the building, and a regular teacher, who faithfully put her pupils
through the exercises commonly allowed to girls. But these seemed to
the Fraeulein to be only a begin