A few minutes after this, Cecille, glancing at the clock, started up, exclaiming, "I must go, it is after eleven!"
"Wait five minutes," said Clara, "and just show me how to put in that last shade, and I will soon finish this corner."
Cecille looked distressed, turned her eyes from the work to the clock, took the needle from Clara's fingers, and then dropping it, said, "I will come back this afternoon, and show you; but you must let me go now. I told my grandmamma that I would come back to her at half-past eleven. I shall just have the time now to get home before that; and if I stay longer she will be frightened for me."
She took up her portfolio, courtesied to me, bade the girls good-by, again assuring Clara that she would come back, and in less than two minutes was out of sight.
"I am sorry," said Clara, as she was putting up her work, "that I asked her to show me any more to-day, for now she will take that long, tiresome walk back again."
"Besides, Clara," said Grace, "you know she is always at work when she is at home, and she will lose so much time coming twice to-day."
"Well, I am sure, Grace," said Clara, reddening at what seemed to her a reproach, "I did not ask her to come again, and I can do no more than be sorry for it now."
"Yes, we can do something more," said Grace, "we can walk over after dinner and tell her not to come."
"So we can and so we will," said Clara, relieved at once by seeing that she could do something to remedy the evil.