lovely.

Little friends, be sure of one thing--our dear Father in heaven sends us
something hard to bear only because he loves us.




SISTER SUSY.

CHAPTER I.

KEEPING SECRETS.


We might begin this story of Susy Parlin on a New Year's day, only it is
so hard to skip over Christmas. There is such a charm about Christmas!
It makes you think at once of a fir tree shining with little candles and
sparkling with toys, or of a droll Santa Claus with a pack full of
presents, or of a waxen angel called the Christ-child.

And it is just as well to date from the twenty-fifth of December,
because, as "Christ was born on Christmas day," that is really the
"Happy New Year."

For a long while the three little Parlin girls had been thinking and
dreaming of presents. Susy's wise head was like a beehive, full of
little plans and little fancies, which were flying about like bees, and
buzzing in everybody's ears.