and went on:  How very, very ugly Ester was; if she hadn’t been there, her mother would have listened kindly to her story of how very sorry she was, and how she meant to do just right.  Then she would have forgiven her, and she would have been freshly dressed in her clean blue dress instead of her pink one, and would have had her happy day after all; and now she would have to spend this bright day all alone; and, at this point, her tears rolled down in torrents.

“Jule,” called a familiar voice, under her window, “where are you?  Come down and mend my sail for me, won’t you?”

Julia went to the window and poured into Alfred’s sympathetic ears the story of her grief and her wrongs.

“Just exactly like her,” was his comment on Ester’s share in the tragedy.  “She grows crosser every day.  I guess, if I were you, I’d let her wait a spell before I asked her forgiveness.”

“I guess I shall,” sputtered Julia.  “She was meaner than any thing, and I’d tell her so this minute, if I saw her; that’s all the sorry I am.”

So the talk went on; and when Alfred was called to get Ester a pail of water, and left Julia in solitude, she found her heart very much strengthened in its purpose to tire everybody out in waiting for her apology.

The long, warm, busy day moved on; and the overworked and wearied mother found time to toil up two flights of stairs in search of her young daughter, in the hope of soothing and helping her; but Julia was in no mood to be helped.  She hated to stay up there alone; she wanted to go down in the garden with Alfred; she wanted to go to the arbor and read her new book; she wanted to take a walk down by the river; she wanted her dinner exceedingly; but to ask Ester’s forgiveness was the one thing that she did not want to do.  No, not if she staid there alone for a week; not if she starved, she said aloud, stamping her foot and growing indignant over the thought.  Alfred came as often as his Saturday occupations would admit, and held emphatic talks with the little prisoner above, admiring her “pluck,” and assuring her that he “wouldn’t give in, not he.”

“You see I can’t do it,” said Julia, with a gleam of satisfaction in her eyes, “because it wouldn’t be true.  I’m not sorry; and mother wouldn’t have me tell a lie for anybody.”

So the sun went toward the west, and Julia at the window watched the academy girls moving homeward from their afternoon ramble, listened to the preparations for tea which were being made among the dishes in the dining-room, and, having no more tears to shed, sighed wearily, and wished the miserable day were quite done and she was sound asleep.  Only a few moments before she had received a third visit from her mother; and, turning to her, fresh from a talk with Alfred, she had answered her mother’s question as to whether she were not now ready to ask Ester’s forgiveness, with quite as sober and determined a “No, ma’am,” as she had given that day; and her mother had gravely and sadly answered, “I am very sorry, Julia I can’t come up here again; I am too tired for that.  You may come to me, if you wish to see me any time before seven o’clock.  After that you must go to your room.”