the same chapter we find that the twin boys are born, Jacob and Esau.  But their old grandfather was dead.  He knew now how true God is to his promises, because he was in Heaven, but we can’t help wishing he had seen those two strong boys from one of whom the Saviour of the whole world was to descend.  But if we look at Abraham’s age when he died, and comparing it with Isaac’s when the twins were born, we find that the old man, truly, had to wait twenty years before they were born, but that he really lived to see them seventeen or eighteen years of age.  He lived to tell them with his own lips about that wonderful promise of God.”

“Oh, I’m so glad!” cried Marjorie, enthusiastically.

“He had another long time to wait, too,” said Linnet.

“Yes, he had hard times all along,” almost sighed Miss Prudence.

Forty years old did not mean to her that her hard times were all over.

“But he had such a good time with the boys,” said Marjorie, who never could see the dark side of anything.  “Just to think of dates telling us such a beautiful thing.”

“That’s all you hate, dates and punctuation,” Linnet declared; “but I can’t see the use of ever so many other things.”

“If God thought it worth while to make the earth and people it and furnish it and govern it with laws, don’t you think it worth your poor little while to learn what he has done?” queried Miss Prudence, gently.

“Oh!” exclaimed Linnet, “is that it?”

“Just it,” said Miss Prudence, smiling, “and some day I will go over with you each study by itself and show you how it will educate you and help you the better to do something he asks you to do.”

“Oh, how splendid!” cried Linnet.  “Before I go to school, so the books won’t seem hard and dry?”

“Yes, any day that you will come to me.  Marjorie may come too, even though she loves to study.”

“I wonder if you can find any good in Natural Philosophy,” muttered Linnet, “and in doing the examples in it.  And in remembering the signs of the Zodiac!  Mr. Holmes makes us learn everything; he won’t let us skip.”

“He is a fine teacher, and you might have had, if you had been so minded, a good preparation for your city school.”

“I haven’t,” said Linnet.  “If it were not for seeing the girls and learning how to be like city girls, I would rather stay home.”

“Perhaps that knowledge would not improve you.  What then?”

“Why, Miss Prudence!” exclaimed Marjorie, “don’t you think we country girls are away behind the age?”

“In the matter of dates!  But you need not be.  With such a teacher as you have you ought to do as well as any city girl of your age.  And there’s always a course of reading by yourself.”

“It isn’t always,” laughed Linnet, “it is only for the studiously disposed.”

“I was a country girl, and when I went to the city to school I did not fail in my examination.”