"Yes 'm," Ruby answered, as she ran away to find Ruthy, thinking that little girls in Miss Abigail's time must have been very different from the little girls she knew, and wondering whether Miss Abigail looked as tall and thin when she was a little girl as she did now, and whether she used to be just as proper and precise.
It was so funny to think of Miss Abigail as a little girl that Ruby laughed aloud at the thought, as she looked for her little friend. She was quite sure of one thing: if she had been a little girl when Miss Abigail was a little girl, she would not have chosen her for a friend. Ruthy was the only little girl in all the world that she could wish to have always for a friend, for who else would be always willing to give up her own way, and yield so patiently to impetuous little Ruby in everything.
CHAPTER VIII.
READY.
Ruby thoroughly enjoyed all the preparations that were being made for her departure. Every day, and a great many times a day, the little trunk would be opened and something more put into its hungry mouth, and it was soon quite full of the things which Ruby was to take with her. Of course she did not get into mischief during these busy days,—there was no time for it. It was only when Ruby had nothing else to think about that she devised plans for mischief. At last everything was ready the evening before she was to start. Miss Abigail had finished all that she had to do; she had bidden Ruby good-by, with a long lecture upon how she ought to behave when she was at school, so as to set a good example to her school-mates, and reflect credit upon her father and mother and the training they had given her, and then she had concluded by giving Ruby something that I am afraid she valued much more than the advice,—a pretty little house-wife, of red silk, which she had made for her, with everything in it that Ruby would need if she wanted to take any stitches.
When Ruby saw it she was sorry that she had twisted about so much, and showed so plainly how impatient she was growing of the long talk which preceded it.
Then Miss Abigail had tied on her large black bonnet, and Ruby had watched her going down the road with a sense of relief that there would be no more fitting of dresses, with cold fingers and still colder scissors, and no more lectures upon good behavior. However, she was so pleased and surprised by the pretty gift that she felt more kindly towards Miss Abigail than she would have believed it possible.
Ruby's old dresses had been made over until they looked just like new ones, and the last stitches had been taken in her new ones, and little white ruffles were basted in the necks, so that they were all ready to put on. Everything had been carefully folded up and packed in her trunk,—not only her clothes, but the little farewell gifts that her friends had brought her.
She had a nice pencil-box, filled with pencils and pen-holders, two penwipers, as well as a box of the dearest little note-paper, just the right size for her to write upon, with her initial "R" at the top of the paper.