"You're not a little cloud, I hope," said papa.
"Oh, no!" answered Lily, mournfully, "not even so good as a cloud. I've been so very, very naughty that I believe I'm a—a"—Lily was racking her imagination for a comparison that should seem severe enough enough—"I've been quite a January thaw, papa."
Mr. Norris opened the door of the coat closet, and hastily put his head therein, taking a remarkably long time to hang up his hat, Lily thought.
Now you must know that a January thaw was Lily's idea of all that was most disagreeable in the weather. For, the last winter, she had had a severe attack of diphtheria; and just as she was well enough to go out, a long spell of damp, foggy days set in, keeping her a prisoner for some weeks longer, and depriving her of many little pleasures on which she had set her heart.
"She must not go outside of the door until this January thaw is over," the doctor said several times; and Lily had come to look upon this as the very worst specimen of weather.
"Don't you scorn me, papa?" she asked, when she had made her confession to him.
"No, I do not scorn you by any means, Lily," he answered; "and I am glad to see that you do really feel your fault, for it gives me hope that you may try to correct it with more earnestness than you have yet done."
And then he talked to her for some time longer, setting before her very plainly all the trouble and inconvenience, yes, and sin too, which might come from indulgence in this habit of procrastination.
Certainly our Lily did not want for teachers, both wise and kind; for her friends, young and old, seemed all to have set themselves to give her help in the right way, if she would but heed them.