"He's used to see Fan doing that," laughed Julia Grafton, looking at Fanny, who, with a very distressed face, was writing away as fast as her pen could move, caring little for the many mistakes she was making, if she only had the exercise finished and handed in with the rest, so that she might escape the threatened complaint to Mrs. Ashton.
Poor Fanny! Indolent and procrastinating, loving her pleasure better than her duty, she was often in such troubles as this. Still, she was good-natured and obliging; and her schoolmates pitied and were fond of her, and were always ready to help her if they could.
"Do some one put the clock back," pleaded Fanny.
"To be sure," said Kate. "Why did not we think of that before? Monsieur will be nicely taken in."
"But suppose Mrs. Ashton finds it out?" said Julia.
"Mrs. Ashton will not suspect anything," said Mary, as Kate laid her hand upon the clock. "It has been wrong once: why not again?"
"Take care you do not injure it," said Julia uneasily. "I know Mr. Ashton gave that clock to his wife only a few days before he died. It was the last thing he ever gave her, and he placed it there on the mantelpiece; for which reason she leaves it here, though I rather wonder at her doing so."
While the others were speaking, Kate Maynard had taken down the clock; and Mary Merton opened it, and moved back the hands. As Kate went to replace it upon the mantelpiece, the voice of Mrs. Ashton speaking to the French professor, and his in reply, were heard in the hall. In her haste, Kate did not put the clock far enough back upon the shelf; it slipped between that and her hand, and fell upon the hearth. Strange to say, it did not fly in pieces, as all the girls expected would be the case; not even the glass over the face was cracked, for the clock fell upon its side, and as the terrified Kate raised it, it appeared unhurt. The next moment, however, as she put it in its proper place, a whirring sound was heard, then a sharp, short click, and the hands stood still.
Mrs. Ashton and Monsieur Gaufrau, hearing nothing of what was going on within, still stood talking in the hall; and the girls, including Fanny, who had quite forgotten her lesson, stood looking from one to another in guilty and alarmed silence.
Mary Merton was the first to break it.