As Ruby said to her Aunt Emma after she had been to school a few Saturdays,—
"It looks very nice, and is good, and then you get more of it for five cents than any other kind of candy, so it is really the best kind to buy, you see."
The old woman always expected Miss Chapman's young ladies every Saturday, and had nice little bags of candy all tied up, ready for them, so that she should not keep them waiting; and if the day was stormy, and she knew that they would not be allowed to go out, she took a covered basketful of candy-bags up to the school, that they might make their purchases there.
Saturday morning was a very pleasant one at school. There was a short study hour, which was really a half-hour, and then the girls wrote letters home, or visited each other in their rooms.
In the afternoon they put on their very best dresses, and had a nicer supper than usual, and almost every Saturday evening the minister and his wife came and took that meal with them.
He was not at all like the minister Ruby had known at home all her life, and whenever she looked at him, she wondered how it was possible for so young a man to be a minister. He never asked any of the girls whether they knew the catechism or not, and Ruby was quite disappointed at this, though I do not think any of the other girls wanted to say it. Ruby was so sure that she knew it perfectly, even the longest and hardest answers, that she was always glad of a chance to show how well she knew it. Perhaps if the others had known it as well, they might have been willing to say it, but as it was, they were quite satisfied that he never asked for it; and Maude, who did not know a word of it, and who had all she could do to learn what her teachers required of her, would have been quite discouraged, I am afraid, if the recitation of the catechism each week had been added to her other tasks.
CHAPTER XXII.
SUNDAY AT SCHOOL.
Sunday morning the scholars slept nearly an hour longer than usual, and this was looked upon as a great treat, particularly in the winter months when it was scarcely light before seven. It seemed very early rising to get up by lamp-light, and all the girls were quite ready to take the extra hour of sleep upon Sunday mornings.