"Why, Auntie?" asked Louise, looking up with three little wrinkles between her eyes, for the stylish bow would not be quite as she wanted it.
"Because I am in danger of losing my roses," answered her aunt, pinching Bess's cheek. "Yesterday they had no fresh air worth mentioning."
"Oh, please don't make us go!" cried Bess in a tone that was almost a wail. "We have so much to do!"
"I must finish my bow," Louise said positively.
"I shall not make you, but Joanna is going to Aunt Marcia's with a note, and I want you to go too because you need the air. I am sure Dora will take the walk with you, and on the way back suppose you stop and ask Mrs. Warner to let her stay to dinner. So fly now and get ready." She spoke so energetically that Dora began at once to roll up her work, and Bess dropped her scissors with a sigh of relief, but Louise held on to her bow desperately.
"I will finish it," she said to herself.
"Louise," her aunt said gently, "the reason you cannot make the bow to please you is because you are tired. Now, which will you do, put it away till to-morrow—when I am sure you will not have any trouble with it—and go to walk with the others, or stay here and grow more and more tired and cross, till you are not fit to come to dinner with the rest of us?"
She had a struggle with herself before she answered in a choked voice, "I guess I'll go, but I did want to finish it."
"Of course, but you will be glad by and by that you chose to do what was right, instead of what you wanted to do," and Aunt Zélie sent her off with a kiss.
The walk to Aunt Marcia's was not such a hardship after all, and when they reached home there was at least an hour for studying lessons before dinner, and that was followed by a grand frolic with Carie, lasting till it was time for Dora to go.