A good many of the grandmothers and the mothers of readers of HARPER'S ROUND TABLE were school-girls at a certain very old school in Pennsylvania still flourishing to-day--the Bethlehem Female Seminary. It was begun far back, in 1785, under the charge of the wise and kind Moravian Church people, who came to our country nearly two hundred years ago. The girls who were taught in this quiet seminary did not, let us say eighty years back from to-day, learn many things that nowadays are part of a girl's course of study. But they were also instructed in some matters always well to know, such as good manners and gentle behavior, love of their country and high principles of womanhood, and their life seems to have been a happy, helpful, and busy one. A great deal was made in this school of birthdays and holidays. Particularly was Christmas a notable event, celebrated by teachers and pupils; for there was not much home going when December came. For weeks they prepared the feast. The woods were ransacked by special committees of girls, big and little, aided by some white-capped "Sister" Hübener or "Sister" Benade. Every room and hall was gradually turned into a bower of green for the fortnight. The spinning that was left over from the year's "stint" was hurried to its end, the pupils being allowed regular "spinning-days," when, in place of books, they sat in rows, with their wheels whirring away all the morning and afternoon, often a school feast of "chocolate and pancakes" winding up the evening. Next, the "Sisters" of the community and the older girls began to arrange an elaborate scene of the birth of Christ as described in the Gospels, much as in many Roman Catholic churches it is done to-day. The Virgin and the Child Jesus, Joseph and the three Wise Men, the Shepherds, the rude stable--all were imitated by dressed and good-sized figures, with care, and as tastefully as possible. But no girl was allowed a peep at this (unless she were helping in preparing it) until Christmas eve. It can be imagined that curiosity ran in a strong current, among the smaller scholars especially.