When we celebrated May-day Clara was chosen queen of May, though Lizzie Lincoln was more beautiful, and Anna seemed more queenly. It was the instinctive homage that young hearts will pay to goodness and purity, which made us feel as if she deserved the brightest crown we could bestow. If one of us were ill, Clara could arrange the pillows or bathe the throbbing temples more tenderly than any other, and bitter medicines seemed less disgusting when administered by her. Was there a hard lesson to learn, a difficult problem to solve, a rebellious drawing that would take any form or shadowing but the right one, Clara was the kind assistant, and either task seemed equally easy to her. While we sat around the table that evening, little Ella Selby was leaning on the back of Clara's chair, and telling, in her own childish way, of the manifold perfections of one Philip Sidney, a classmate of her brother in college, who had spent a vacation with him at her home. Ella was quite sure that no other gentleman was half so handsome, so good, or kind as Mr. Sidney, and she added, "I know he loves Clara, for I have told him a great deal about her, and he says that he does." The girls all laughed at her simple earnestness, and bright blushes rose in Clara's face. Many prophecies for the future were based on this slight foundation, and Clara was raised to the rank of a heroine. It needs but slight fuel to feed the flame of romance in a school-girl's breast, and these dreamings might long have been indulged but for an interruption. A servant came, bringing a basket, with a note from the ladies engaged in decorating the church, requesting the young ladies of the school to prepare the letters for a motto on the walls of the church. The letters were cut from pasteboard, to be covered with small sprigs of box. Pleased with the novelty of our task we were soon busily engaged, under the direction of Clara and Anna Lincoln. Even the "mischief spirits" ceased their revels to watch our progress. Thus passed that evening, and as the next day was Saturday, and of course a holyday, we completed our work. The garlands were not to be hung in the church until the Wednesday following, as Friday was Christmas day. We employed ourselves after study hours the intervening days in finishing the presents we had commenced for each other. On Wednesday morning Lucy Gray, one of our day-scholars, brought a note from her mother, requesting that she might be excused from her afternoon lessons, and inviting the teachers and young ladies of the school to join them in dressing the church. Here was a prospect for us of some rare enjoyment; and how we plead for permission, and promised diligence and good behaviour for the future, those who remember their own school-days can easily imagine. At length permission was granted that Anna and Lizzie Lincoln, Fan Selby, Clara Adams, and I, accompanied by one of the teachers, might assist them for an hour or two in the afternoon. Never did hours seem