OR,
"JUST ONE MINUTE!"
"COME, Louisa, are you ready? The car will be here directly."
"In just one minute," replied Louisa, throwing down the book she had taken up for "just one minute," while she was getting ready for school, and hastening to put on her hat and gloves.
But in that minute the street-car passed. There was not another car for twelve minutes. Then the drawbridge was raised for the passage of a ship, which made a delay of ten minutes more.
The consequence of all these delays was, that though they walked themselves out of breath, Louisa and her little sister Anna were ten minutes too late for school, and poor Anna got a bad mark for no fault of her own except her good-nature in waiting for her sister.
Louisa was in many respects a good girl. She was amiable, truthful, and very obliging, yet she made more trouble and caused more disappointments than any other person in the family. She was much brighter than her sister Anna, and yet she "missed" in school three times to Anna's one. Louisa was truthful, and yet she was not to be trusted: she was obliging, yet she often disobliged those whom she tried to help, and if she was not fretful herself, she was very often the cause of fretfulness in others. All these seeming contradictions are easily explained. The answer to the riddle lay in Louisa's favorite phrase, "just one minute."
For instance. An important message was to go to papa's office and there was nobody to carry it but Louisa. Aunt Maria had written to say that she was coming to make a visit and bring her baby; but the measles were prevailing in D—, and as the baby was a delicate little thing it would not do to have her exposed to the disease. Papa had gone to his office in the city before Aunt Maria's letter came.