o hear
me recite."

So saying she went slowly from the school room and upstairs to her own
apartment.

There were a few minutes of waiting for Alma, which did not improve
Lulu's temper, and as the girl came in she received an angry glance,
accompanied by the remark, in no very pleasant tones, that she had no
business to send for people till she was ready to attend to them.

At that Alma colored painfully. "I am sorry to have inconvenienced you,
Miss Lu," she said, "but I'll try not to keep you so very long."

"If you don't, it will be about the first time that you haven't,"
snapped Lulu. "I think you are just about the slowest, most blundering
dressmaker I ever did see."

At that unkind remark, Alma's eyes filled with tears, but she went on
silently with her work, making no rejoinder, while Lulu--the reproaches
of conscience rendering her uneasy and irritable--fidgetted and fussed,
thus greatly increasing the difficulty of the task.

"Miss Lu," Alma said at last, in a despairing tone, "if you can't keep
stiller, it is not possible for me to make the dress to fit you right."

"Indeed!" returned Lulu scornfully, "I don't feel sure of your ability
to fit it right under any circumstances--such a stupid, awkward thing as
you are, and----"

Her sentence was left unfinished, for at that instant, to her
astonishment and dismay, her father's voice called to her from his
dressing-room, in sterner accents than she had heard from him in a long
while. "Lucilla, come here to me!" She had not known of his detention at
home, but supposed he had gone with the others to Ion.

Jerking off the waist, which Alma had already unfastened,--snatching up
a dressing-sack and putting it on as she went,--she appeared before him,
blushing and shamefaced.

"I am both surprised and mortified by what I have just overheard," he
said. "I had a better opinion of my dear, eldest daughter than to
suppose she would ever show herself so heartless. You surely must have
forgotten that poor Alma is a stranger, in a strange land, while you are
at home, in your father's house. Go to her now, and apologize for your
rudeness."

Lulu made no movement to obey, but stood before him in sullen silence
and with downcast, scowling countenance.

He waited a moment; then said sternly, "Lucilla, you will yield instant
obedience to my order, or go immediately to your own room, and not
venture into my presence again until you can tell me you have obeyed."

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