be plenty. Sue, I think it's going to be real jolly, don't you?"




CHAPTER III.

THE STORY OF DINAH DIAMOND.


Miss Ruth Elliot was the minister's sister. And two years before, when
she came to live in the parsonage, an addition of two rooms was built
for her on the ground floor because she was an invalid, and lame, and
could not climb the stairs.

They were pretty rooms, with soft carpets, pictures on the walls, and in
the winter time the sun shining in all day at the south window and the
glass door. In summer with this door wide open and the piazza cool and
shady with woodbine and clematis, you would have agreed with the little
girls who made up Ruth Elliot's sewing circle, that first Wednesday
afternoon, that they were "just lovely!"

All were there--the Jones' twins, Ann Eliza and Eliza Ann, tall girls as
like each other as two peas and growing so fast one could always see
where their gowns were let down; Grace Tyler with curly black hair and
rosy cheeks; Nellie Dimock, a little dumpling of a girl with big blue
eyes and a funny turned up nose; Fannie Eldridge, looking so sweet and
smiling, you would not suspect she could be guilty of the fault Susie
had charged her with; and Florence Austin, whose father had lately
purchased a house in Green Meadow, and with his family had come to live