"Not Cecille, Clara," said Mrs. Wilmot; "you could not be so thoughtless—so selfish—as to keep her hard earnings from her for a single day, for any purpose of your own. Speak, my child, and tell me it is not so."
Clara spoke not—moved not—except that her head sunk lower and lower, till it almost rested on her knees. "Tell me, Clara, if you have done this wrong, that I may make amends for it at once. Do you owe Cecille?"
"Yes," faltered Clara.
Mrs. Wilmot rose, and after calling Grace, seated herself at the library table and wrote a few lines to Cecille, in which she was about to enclose the price of a month's tuition, when Grace, who had seen her counting it out, said, "Mamma, Clara does not owe Cecille so much, she paid her some."
"Clara," asked Mrs. Wilmot, "how much do you owe Cecille?"
"I do not know exactly, ma'am."
"How much did you pay her?"
"All that Grace had. I do not know how much it was."
"How much was it, Grace?"
"One dollar and fifteen cents, mamma."