"THERE comes Prinkie!" and the girls in Miss Winthrop's class made room for the new-comer. This was a rosy-cheeked girl with sparkling black eyes and, what the girls noticed particularly, a new hat. Prinkie Brown, as they called her, reveled in new hats. She had a new one for Thanksgiving, another for Christmas, one when her mother came from New York, and now at Easter she was out in still another! Old Mrs. Brown was wont to say: "Prinkie is chock full of vanity and ought not to be indulged in her love of fine clothes;" but Mr. Brown was a rich man, and seldom refused to gratify any desire or whim of either wife or daughter, and so Prinkie had new hats and dresses to her heart's content. No, I am mistaken.
When did new hats or new dresses ever give any one a contented heart? True, to look into the young girl's face you might think she was very happy; but her happiness was short-lived. A whisper reached her ears.
"Did you ever see such a vain girl?" said Ella Clark to the girl next to her.
"No; Prinkie grows more like a peacock every day. I don't believe she ever thinks of anything beyond new clothes."
"Now you watch her. When Miss Winthrop asks her a question she simpers and looks down at her gloves and smooths her laces as if she thought those things were the most important."
"I suppose she does think just that!"
Now Prinkie did not hear all of this, but she caught enough of it to understand the drift of the talk, and she was angry and mortified. "Like a peacock," indeed! Was a girl to be called names because she had a new hat? When would one wear new clothes if not on Easter Sunday? Was not the church and Sunday-school room tastefully decorated? It was real mean of those girls to spoil her enjoyment of her new hat by such ill-natured remarks. True she had not been quite satisfied. Her gloves were not an exact match for the hat, and she had pouted a little that morning over the fact, and grandma had vexed her by saying "Mary"—her real name is Mary—"Mary, I am afraid that in dressing for the day you are thinking more of yourself and too little of the meaning of Easter."
Was it true, as they all seemed to think, that she thought of nothing else than her clothes? What was the superintendent saying: "Let us not lose sight of the event we celebrate to-day. We would be miserable indeed were it not for this most glorious truth that our Christ is not a dead Christ, but a living Saviour. And in our admiration and enjoyment of these decorations, these floral offerings which you have brought, in these symbols let us not forget what we symbolize. The resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord is our theme; let us sing with joyful voice:
Hail, all hail, victorious Lord and Saviour,
Thou hast burst the bonds of death!"
Prinkie sang with the rest, and only Miss Winthrop noticed the troubled expression which rested upon the young girl's face. Miss Winthrop was very much troubled about her class; they were girls from twelve to fifteen years old. Some of them were church members, but nearly all seemed given over to frivolity. During the winter just passed there had been some religious interest in other classes in the school, yet these girls, absorbed in school, children's parties, and dress, had frittered the time away, and, so far as their teacher could see, had made little progress in the divine life. She had come before them this Easter morning with a heavily burdened heart. She had prayed that they might awaken to a newness of life, that the Easter lessons might sink into their hearts, that the shackles of sin and frivolity which held them might be broken, that they might henceforth abound in the fruits of righteousness. And now as she listened to their chatter and noticed their enjoyment of their fluttering ribbons, and heard the light tinkle of their bangles, she sighed over the apparent failure of her hopes for them. She turned towards them at the beginning of the lesson-hour, saying: