ose
cold fingers and sharp scissors.

It was very pleasant to go to the store with Aunt Emma, and help choose
the pretty calicoes and delaines which were to be made into dresses and
help fill the little trunk. Ruby never felt more important than when
she was perched upon the high stool before the counter and had four new
dresses at once. She fancied that the store-keeper was more respectful
in his tone than he usually was when he addressed little girls, and
that he was much impressed by the fact that Aunt Emma let her select
the pattern herself instead of choosing for her.

The calicoes were very pretty. One was covered with little rosebuds
upon a cream-tinted ground, and the other had little dark-blue moons
upon a light-blue ground. The delaines were brown and blue; and then
besides these dresses, Ruby's best cashmere was to be let down, and
have the sleeves lengthened, so that it would still be nice for a best
dress.

Ruby had never had so many new dresses all at once in her life before,
and she felt very important when her papa brought them home in the
buggy, and they were all spread out before Miss Abigail.

Miss Abigail looked at them very wisely, with her head a little upon
one side. She rubbed them between her fingers, wondered whether they
would wash well, and finally looked at Ruby, and said,--

"I trust you are a very thankful little girl for all the mercies you
have. So you know that there are some poor little children who have
but rags to wear?"

"Yes 'm," said Ruby, meekly.

"Then don't you think you ought to appreciate all the blessings that
have been bestowed upon you?"

"Yes 'm," Ruby replied again.

"Then you must try to be an obedient, gentle child, and do as you are
bid in everything."

"Yes 'm," said Ruby, wishing in the bottom of her heart that the
dresses were all made.

She had never had very much to do with Miss Abigail herself, although
she had often seen her, and two or three times she had spent a day at
the house, helping Mrs. Harper make one of her own dresses. Upon those
occasions, however, Ruby had spent the day with Ruthy, and so she had
only been with Miss Abigail a little while in the morning, and had not
had much to say to her.

"If Miss Abigail was my mamma, I would not stay in the same house with
her," Ruby said to herself. "I guess that is why she has n't any
little girls,--because she don't know how to make them happy. I don't
want to be told all the time a