Maggie, however, thought it well to improve the occasion.
"I did not want to seem severe with her," she said afterward to Bessie and Belle, "but I thought the picture might make a deeper impression if I let her see to what a dreadful condition procrastinating people might come."
"Yes," she said to Lily, "yes, that is Procrastination, all ragged and dirty and starved. He never has a nice time, and he hardly ever has any thing to eat, 'cause when people say to him, 'Procrastination, dinner is ready,' he says, 'I think I'll eat by and by;' and then when he comes, the dinner is all gone, and he has to go hungry: and when they say, 'Go and get washed, and have on clean clothes,' he says, 'Another day I will;' so he becomes all ragged, and his friends are so ashamed of him that they just let him take care of himself. That's the way he looks so horridly. And poor old Time hardly knows what to do with himself for the way that troublesome fellow worries him. He doesn't leave Time alone to do his duty one minute. Do you see these things in Procrastination's hand?"
"Yes; what are they?" asked Lily, deeply interested.
"They are Time's purse and pocket handkerchief that Procrastination--I think we'd better call him Pro, because it takes so long to say Procrastination--that Pro has stolen out of his pocket; and here at his feet are some broken hour-glasses; and now he is running after Time, and trying to steal his last hour-glass, so that the poor old fellow will have none left. That means, when you're not talking allegory, that Pro steals the hours and makes you lose all your time; but he can not catch him up, which means that when you have lost your time, you never can catch up with it."
"Yes," said Lily, dolefully; "but I think it would be better if you made Pro stealing inkstands. It's just what I deserve. Is that all about that picture?"
"Yes," answered Maggie; "now we come to real life. Bessie, this is your picture; tell Lily about it."
It is to be observed that the ragged figure which represented Procrastination, or "Pro," was to be seen in each successive picture. This was considered a judicious mingling of the allegorical with reality.
"This," said Bessie, "is a little girl whose mamma said to her, 'My dear, there is a match upon the carpet; pick it up right away.' But Procrastination"--Bessie would not on any account have shortened her words, especially on such a grave occasion--"came and whispered to her, 'By and by will do; it's time enough;' and presently her little sister came in and picked up the match, and set herself on fire, and she was quite burnt up before she could be put out, and she was the only sister the put-offing child had, and she stayed unhappy all the rest of the days of her life."