"No, I b'lieve not," answered the little girl. "If I do, I'll come to you. I was just thinking where I'd go to sew."
"Will you come to the nursery? It is all put in order," asked Nora, anxious to carry her point, and seeing from Lily's manner that her old enemy was busy with her.
"I'll see presently," said Lily. "I'm just going to the little parlor to look for my petticoat. I forget what I did with it yesterday when I had done sewing."
And, leaving her hold of the banisters, she crossed the hall. But as she passed the open door of the drawing-room, the piano caught her eye, and turned her thoughts into another channel.
"I think I'll go and practise first," she said. "It's all the same thing, and I can do the petticoat afterwards. I have just the same time."
This was true enough, but Lily was not wise, for she liked to practise, and she did not like to sew; and it would have been better for her to have done with the least pleasant duty first.
She placed herself at the piano, and, I must do her the justice to say, practised steadily for half an hour.
"It is ten minutes of ten," she said, looking at the clock. "Oh, there's lots of time yet; I can stay here a little longer. I'm going to practise this new piece some more."
This new piece was one Miss Ashton had given her the day before, so that she had had but one lesson on it; and it had all the charm of novelty to her, besides being, as she thought, the prettiest piece she had ever played.