And with this Julia had let her depart, only saying, as the door closed:  “Then I can be asleep before Ester comes up.  I’m glad of that.  I wouldn’t look at her again to-day for anything.”  And then Julia was once more summoned to the window.

“Jule,” Alfred said, with less decision in his voice than there had been before, “mother looked awful tired when she came down stairs just now, and there was a tear rolling down her cheek.”

“There was?” said Julia, in a shocked and troubled tone.

“And I guess,” Alfred continued, “she’s had a time of it to-day.  Ester is too cross even to look at; and they’ve been working pell-mell all day; and Minnie tumbled over the ice-box and got hurt, and mother held her most an hour; and I guess she feels real bad about this.  She told Sadie she felt sorry for you.”

Silence for a little while at the window above, and from the boy below:  then he broke forth suddenly:  “I say, Jule, hadn’t you better do it after all—­not for Ester, but there’s mother, you know.”

“But, Alfred,” interrupted the truthful and puzzled Julia, “what can I do about it?  You know I’m to tell Ester that I’m sorry; and that will not be true.”

This question also troubled Alfred.  It did not seem to occur to these two foolish young heads that she ought to be sorry for her own angry words, no matter how much in the wrong another had been.  So they stood with grave faces, and thought about it.  Alfred found a way out of the mist at last.

“See here, aren’t you sorry that you couldn’t go to Vesta’s, and had to stay up there alone all day, and that it bothered mother?”

“Of course,” said Julia, “I’m real sorry about mother.  Alfred, did I, honestly, make her cry?”

“Yes, you did,” Alfred answered, earnestly.  “I saw that tear as plain as day.  Now you see you can tell Ester you’re sorry, just as well as not; because, if you hadn’t said any thing to her, mother could have made it all right; so of course you’re sorry.”

“Well,” said Julia, slowly, rather bewildered still, “that sounds as if it was right; and yet, somehow——.  Well, Alfred, you wait for me, and I’ll be down right away.”

So it happened that a very penitent little face stood at her mother’s elbow a few moments after this; and Julia’s voice was very earnest:  “Mother, I’m so sorry I made you such a great deal of trouble to-day.”

And the patient mother turned and kissed the flushed cheek, and answered kindly:  “Mother will forgive you.  Have you seen Ester, my daughter?”

“No, ma’am,” spoken more faintly; “but I’m going to find her right away.”

And Ester answered the troubled little voice with a cold “Actions speak louder than words.  I hope you will show how sorry you are by behaving better in future.  Stand out of my way.”

“Is it all done up?” Alfred asked, a moment later, as she joined him on the piazza to take a last look at the beauty of this day which had opened so brightly for her.