“This is what I wanted to say, papa,” said Effie:  “you know poor Agnes never has any money of her own; and I know, when she sees us all giving presents to each other, she will feel badly, if she cannot give something too; and I want to know if you won’t give her a little money, and let her go to the village with us the next time we go, and get some materials to make something out of?”

Mr. Wharton answered by putting his hand in his pocket, and giving Effie some silver for Agnes, with which she went off perfectly happy.

And now little Grace put in her curly head, and said, “Effie, when you are through with papa, I’ve got something to say to him too.”

The sum and substance of Grace’s communication was this:  “she had seen something at a store in the village, with which she was sure her mamma would be perfectly charmed, but she hadn’t quite enough money to purchase it; she only wanted ten cents more.”  And she too went off with a smiling face.

Emily now came in jingling her keys and called them all to dinner.

As soon as possible after dinner, the boys laden with a basket of good things, which Emily had provided for them, started off for the snow palace, one of them carrying the dinner-horn, which was used in the summer, to call the men to the farm-house to their meals.  When the entertainment was ready the horn was to sound.  In the meantime, the children were sitting around the fire, waiting impatiently for the signal, to call them to the palace of snow.

“Cousin Emily,” said Agnes, for she too said “Cousin Emily,” though there was no relationship, in fact, between them, “Cousin Emily, I wish I knew what to read and study.  I do want to know something, and I don’t know anything but my Bible, and my little book of hymns.  Mammy taught me to read, or I should’nt have known anything at all,” she added sadly.

“Well, Agnes,” that is the best knowledge you could possibly have, said Emily, “though I am far from thinking other studies unimportant; but, if I can help you in any way, I will gladly lend you books, and tell you how to study.”

“Oh! will you, cousin Emily?” said Agnes, her face brightening; “how happy I shall be! aunty has taught Effie and Grace, and they have studied Geography and History, and they can cipher, and I don’t know anything at all about those things; why, even little Harry knows more than I do.”

“But you can beat us all in Bible knowledge, I know, Agnes,” said Emily, “and, in a very little time, you will catch up to the other children, for aunty has little leisure time to devote to them.  But there!  I hear the horn! call Kitty, to bring the baby, and we’ll all start.”

And now all warmly wrapped in cloaks and hoods, the little party left the side piazza, and walked down towards the pond.  The path was well broken, as the boys travelled it so often, on their way to the pond and the snow palace, and the little party went briskly on.  Emily and Agnes headed the procession, then came Effie and Grace, dragging a box-sled in which the baby was comfortably stowed, and Kitty, the nurse, brought up the rear, leading little Harry.  The two boys met them at some distance from the snow palace, and told them they must go through the labyrinth before they could reach the place of entertainment.