“I suppose so,” said Arla, with a sigh; “but it is really a great pity that every striking clock in Rondaine should be wrong!”
“But how do you know they are all wrong?” asked the superintendent.
“Oh, that is easy enough,” said Arla, “when I lie awake in the early morning, I listen to their striking, and then I look at my own rose clock to see what time it really is.”
“Your rose clock?” said the superintendent.
“This is it,” said Arla, opening her basket and taking out her little clock.
The superintendent took it into his hands and looked at it, outside and inside. And then, still holding it, he stepped out into the courtyard. When in a few moments he returned, he said, “I have compared your clock with my sundial, and find that it is ten minutes slow!”
“My—clock—ten—minutes—slow!” exclaimed Arla, with wide-open eyes.
“Yes,” said the superintendent. “Such a clock as this—which is a very ingenious and beautiful one—ought frequently to be compared with a sundial, and set to the proper hour.”
Arla sat quiet for a moment and then she said: “I think I shall not care any more to compare the clocks of Rondaine with my little rose clock. If the people do not care to know exactly when Christmas Day begins, I can do nobody any good by listening to the different strikings and then looking at my own little clock.”
“Especially,” said the superintendent, with a smile, “when you are not sure that your rose clock is right. But if you bring your little clock and your key here on any day when the sun is shining, I shall set it to the time shadowed on the sundial, or show you how to do it yourself.”