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.

Besides the pleasure with which Ruby looked forward to Christmas on her
own account, she looked forward to the pleasure she expected to give
others, and I need not tell you that that is the secret of the greatest
happiness in all the wide world. And so the days flew on, each one
bringing the joyous home-going nearer.

CHAPTER XXIV.

FINIS.

There came a morning when the very last mark was scratched off the
calendars that hung in every room in the school, and the girls knew
that, long as it had been in coming, the last day before the holidays
had really come.

It was a delightful day, for there was so much pleasant preparation
going on.

"It is just lovely to have such a higgledy-piggledy day," Ruby
exclaimed with a rapturous sigh of delight. There was a rehearsal in
the morning, to make sure that all the girls were ready for