. People
nowadays are trying to do away with Bibles and prayers in schools, but
I think the few words which Miss Fitch said in the Lord's ear every
night--and they were very few and simple--sent the little ones away
with a sense of the Father's love and nearness which it was good for
them to feel. All the girls and some of the boys waited to kiss Miss
Fitch for good-night. It had been a pleasant day. Nobody, for a
wonder, had received a fault-mark of any kind; nothing had gone wrong,
and the children departed with a general bright sense that such days
do not often come, and that what remained of this ought to be made the
most of.

There were still three hours and a half of precious daylight. What
should be done with them?

Eyebright and a knot of girls, whose homes lay in the same direction
with hers, walked slowly down the street together. It was a beautiful
afternoon, with sunshine of that delicious sort which only June knows
how to brew,--warm, but not burning; bright, but not dazzling. It lay
over the walk in broad golden patches, broken by soft, purple-blue
shadows from the elms, which had just put out their light leaves and
looked like fountains of green spray tossed high in air. There was a
sweet smell of hyacinths and growing grass and cherry-blossoms;
altogether it was not an afternoon to spend in the house, and the
children felt the fact.

"I don't want to go home yet," said Molly Prime. "Let's do something
pleasant all together instead."

"I wish my swing were ready, and we'd all have a swing in it," said
Laura Wheelwright. "Tom said he would put it up to-day, but mother
begged him not, because she said I had a cold and would be sure to run
in the damp grass and wet my feet. What shall we do? We might go for a
walk to Round Pond; will you?"

"No; I'll tell you," burst in Eyebright. "Don't let's do that, because
if we do, the big boys will see us and want to come too, and then we
sha'n't have any fun. Let's all go into our barn; there's lots of hay
up in the loft, and we'll open the big window and make thrones of hay
to sit on and tell stories. It'll be just as good as out-doors, and no
one will know where we are or come to interrupt us. Don't you think it
would be nice? Do come, Laura."

"Delicious! Come along, girls," answered Laura, crumpling her soft
sun-bonnet into a heap, and throwing it up into the air, as if it had
been a ball.

"Oh, may we come too?" pleaded little Tom and Rosy Bury.

"No,