Dora laughed, as Claire returned to the easy chair.
"How many things you are going to do to-morrow, Claire? I heard you promise the girls a dozen or so. And that reminds me that Doctor Ellis wants to know if you will look in to-morrow, and go with Mrs. Ellis to call on a new family, of whom he said he told you."
"I know," said Claire, "I was thinking about them this morning. I must try and go to-morrow. They are people who ought not to be neglected. Did he say at what hour? Oh, mamma, have you that broth ready for aunt Kate? I might go around there with it now: I shall not have time to-morrow, and I promised her I would come myself before the week closed."
Then the fast falling snow was discussed, and demurred over a little by mother and younger sister, and laughingly accepted by Claire as a pleasant accessory to a winter walk; and it ended, as things were apt to end in that family, in Claire having her own way, and sallying forth equipped for the storm, with her basket of comforts on her arm.
She looked back to Dora to say that mamma must not worry if she were detained, for she had promised to look in at Mr. Anstead's and make some arrangements for to-morrow's committee meeting; and to add that the papers in the library were to be left as they were, ready for to-morrow.
"It is the eventful day," she said, laughingly, "our work is to culminate then. We are to discover what the fruit of all this getting ready is; we are to have things just as they are to be, without a break or a pause."
"Why do you say 'perhaps,' you naughty croaker? Do you dare to think that anything will be less than perfect after the weeks of labor we have given it?"
"How can I tell? Nothing is ever perfect. Did you never notice, Claire, that it is impossible to get through a single day just as one plans it?"
"I have noticed it," Claire answered, smiling, "but I did not know that your young head had taken it in."
"Ah, but I have. _I_ plan occasionally, myself, but I am like Paul in one thing, any way, 'how to perform I find not.' It is worse on Saturday than any other day. I almost never do as I intended."
"I wouldn't quote Bible verses with a twisted meaning, if I were you, little girl. It is a dangerous habit; I know by experience. They so perfectly fit into life, that one is sorely tempted. But I am not often troubled in the way you mention; my plans generally come out all right. Possibly because I have studied them from several sides, and foreseen and provided for hindrances. There is a great deal in that. You see, to-morrow, if I don't get through with all the engagements laid out for it. I have studied them all, and there really _can't_ anything happen to throw me very far off my programme."