PREFACE.
Here is a story about the oldest of the three little Parlin girls, "sister Susy;" though so many things are always happening to Prudy that it is not possible to keep her out of the book.
I hope my dear little friends will see how kind it was in God to send the "slow winter" and the long nights of pain to little Prudy.
If trouble should come to us, let us grow gentle, and patient, and lovely.
Little friends, be sure of one thing--our dear Father in heaven sends us something hard to bear only because he loves us.
SISTER SUSY.
CHAPTER I.
KEEPING SECRETS.
We might begin this story of Susy Parlin on a New Year's day, only it is so hard to skip over Christmas.

There is such a charm about Christmas! It makes you think at once of a fir tree shining with little candles and sparkling with toys, or of a droll Santa Claus with a pack full of presents, or of a waxen angel called the Christ-child.
And it is just as well to date from the twenty-fifth of December, because, as "Christ was born on Christmas day," that is really the "Happy New Year." For a long while the three little Parlin girls had been thinking and dreaming of presents.

Susy's wise head was like a beehive, full of little plans and little fancies, which were flying about like bees, and buzzing in everybody's ears.
But it may be as well to give you a short description of the Parlin family.
Susy's eyes were of an "evening blue," the very color of the sky in a summer night; good eyes, for they were as clear as a well which has the "truth" lying at the bottom of it.

She was almost as nimble as a squirrel, and could face a northern snow storm like an engineer.

Her hair was dark brown, and as smooth and straight as pine-needles; while Prudy's fair hair rippled like a brook running over pebbles.