The sewing meeting passed off this day without hindrance; for Baby Annie was not admitted; and there was nothing else especially to take off Lily's attention from the task in hand. Aunt Annie read an interesting story, it was true, but all the little girls sewed industriously as they listened; and at the end of the hour Maggie's petticoat and Bessie's bag were completed, while those of Belle and Lily had made fair progress.
"I have only three more days," said the latter, "for you know we have to give in the things on Tuesday, and this is Thursday."
Lily's tone was rather hopeless.
"I think you might finish your skirt in two days, Lily," said Miss Stanton. "Two hours' steady work such as you have given to it to-day would be quite time enough. If I were you I should sew one hour to-morrow, and one on Saturday, so that you may have little or nothing for your last day, Monday."
"Why wouldn't it do just as well to keep some for Monday?" asked Lily, folding up her work.
"Only that if you could finish it in the next two days it would be better," answered Miss Annie, "because something might happen to prevent you from doing so at the last moment."
"Don't have any more putting-off fits, Lily," said Maggie. "Don't you find 'distance lends enchantment to the view' of Pro? What are you laughing at, Aunt Annie? There is such a proverb, for I read it this very morning, only I didn't think I should have a good chance to use it so soon. I'll show it to you, so you need not think I made it up."
"Yes, I know," said Annie, catching the rosy, eager face between her two hands, and lovingly kissing either dimpled cheek. "It is an old, old proverb, and one very well known, dear Maggie; and let us hope that Procrastination may indeed look so much better at a distance than near at hand that Lily may keep it there, and not let it come near her."
"Aunt Annie," said Bessie, "you must be a very laughable person, for so often you laugh at things that we don't think funny at all."
"That is true," answered Aunt Annie, whose eyes were brimming with mischief, while she laughed more merrily than ever.