"Well, it's exactly ten now."
"But I've been here five minutes. I looked when I came in."
"Come, now, Frankie," urged the lady, "be a good boy, and I'll help you. If you give your whole attention to it, you will learn the lesson well in an hour."
Frankie's lingers Cell upon the keys; but his eyes had a vacant look, and Aunt Sarah knew then, just as well as she did at the end of the hour, that the time would be wasted. She took up her book again, and the boy began to play over and over one of his first lessons, which he could do without any effort.
Five minutes more passed in this manner, when Tony poked her nose through the crack of the door, which stood ajar, and then made her way into the room, barking joyfully that she had found her young master. This was a very good excuse, the boy thought, for taking a recess; so down he got from the stool, and had a fine romp with the dog on the floor.
"Do you call that practising your lesson?" asked his aunt, laughing.
"My fingers ache so," he began; but she interrupted him.
"I'll keep the time for you. Five minutes lost already."
Frankie suddenly recollected the nutting, and, seating himself quickly, began to thumb over the same lesson again.
"Now, Frankie, that's too bad!" she said, reprovingly. "Begin on the new lesson. You have diddled that over and over till I'm tired of it."