"Oh, never mind. You can go now," said Lily, carelessly. "We'll be time enough."
"Come, let us go now," said Maggie, with an expression which showed that she by no means agreed with Lily that it was "time enough;" and good-by being said to mamma and Mrs. Rush, she led the way from the room, followed by the rest of the young party, who were soon seated snugly in the carriage.
"Lily," said Maggie, as soon as they had fairly started, "I have a story to tell you about punctuality."
"Pooh! I don't want to hear about your old punctuality," said Lily. "Everybody just bothers me 'most to death about being punctual. Tom has been making a fuss about it just now."
"But it is a story,--one of Maggie's stories," said Belle, who thought it quite incredible that any one should decline an opportunity of hearing one of those interesting and valuable narratives.
"It is not a story of my own making up," said Maggie, with the solemnity which befitted a teacher of moral lessons; "but it is very interesting, and may do some good, if people choose to let it. But as there are 'none so deaf as those who won't hear,' so I suppose there are none so hard to teach as those who won't be taught."
"The story is this," answered Maggie. "Once thirteen ladies went to a meeting, or ought to go to a meeting. Well, twelve of them came at the right time to the house of a very wise old Quaker lady, where the meeting was; but the thirteenth lady did not come for a quarter of an hour after she ought to. So the other ladies were as tired as they could be, 'cause they couldn't begin to do what they had to do without her--but I would have if I'd been there--and some of them yawned--which wasn't polite for them to do, but they could hardly help it--and some went to sleep, and some had headaches, and one who was sitting in a breeze from the window, where she didn't like to sit, took cold, and had a sore throat and a toothache, and she had to go and have her tooth out; which was all the fault of the unpunctual lady, and I should think she'd be very much ashamed of herself."
"So should I," said Mabel, as Maggie paused to take breath.
"What's the rest of the story?" asked Bessie, impatient of delay in such a thrilling tale.