The preparations for the examination had not interfered with Cecille's teaching. She came as regularly, stayed as long, and seemed as welcome to Clara and Grace as when they had only their usual employments. It was the last Wednesday in November, and just one week before the day fixed for the examination, that, knowing Cecille would be at Hazel Grove, I determined to walk over and spend the morning with her grandmother. On my way I met Cecille. She was walking very briskly, but stopped to shake hands with me.

"I am going to see your grandmother, Cecille," said I.

"I am very glad; I will not now have any thing to make me sorry to-day. This is one of my bright days. Do you know why?"

I shook my head.

"No?—Do you not know that this is my pay-day? Grandmamma will soon have her flannel, if you help me as you promised, and she wants it in this weather."

I congratulated Cecille on her coming pleasure, promised her my help, and we parted.

I spent my morning very agreeably with Madame L'Estrange, yet I listened to Mrs. Daly's clock, which stood on the mantelpiece, and watched its hands with as much impatience as if I had been weary and longed to get away. The truth was, I was impatient for Cecille's coming, which I had determined to await, that I might have the pleasure of seeing her happy looks when her wishes were accomplished and the money was actually in her hands. Did you ever observe how slowly the hands of a clock appear to move when they are watched? I thought this morning that the hour from ten to eleven was the longest I had ever passed. It did pass, however, and at length I saw the hour hand at eleven and the minute hand at twelve. Now I began to watch the windows, for I thought that Cecille must soon be in sight. But here again I was disappointed, and both her grandmother and myself had more than once expressed our surprise at her delay, before she appeared;—and then I could scarcely believe it was the same Cecille whom I had seen in the morning, bounding along as if her feet scarce touched the earth. She walked now slowly and pensively, and I even fancied once that I saw her wipe her eyes.

As she came near the house, however, she looked up and her step became more brisk. She entered the room where we sat. I looked at her anxiously, but she turned her face away as if she could not bear to meet my eye, and walking straight up to her grandmother, put a parcel into her hand and stood still by her side.

"You do not speak to your friend, my dear," said Madame L'Estrange without opening the parcel, about which she seemed to feel no curiosity.

Cecille put her hand in mine without speaking—then looked again at her grandmother, who had by this time slowly unfolded the packet. She looked at its contents, and then lifting up her face with a smile to Cecille, said, "Ah, little pilferer! where is the rest?"

In a choked voice Cecille answered, "There is no more."

"There is no more!" exclaimed Madame L'Estrange; "why how is this, Cecille? This is but half of what you have always received for a month's teaching."

Cecille tried to answer, but in vain. Her throat swelled, her lip quivered, and throwing herself upon her grandmother's bosom, she burst into tears. Madame L'Estrange was, as you may easily suppose, greatly distressed. She stroked Cecille's hair, pressed her lips to her head, calling her at the same time by every endearing name which the French language furnishes, and repeatedly asking, "What is the matter? Has any one been harsh to my child? Cecille, what have they done to you, my darling?"

"Nothing, grandmamma," sobbed out Cecille; "I was only grieved because I had no more money to bring you to-day."

"My dear child! I am ashamed of you, Cecille. You should have been more thankful for this, which will pay Mrs. Daly, and we owe no one else."

"I know it, grandmamma. Besides, Clara will pay me next week when her father comes for her, and that is a very little while to wait."

"And what made you grieve so unreasonably, Cecille?"

Cecille looked at me with a half smile as she answered, "Because I wanted that money just to-day very much, grandmamma."

"And why just to-day, Cecille?"

"Ah, grandmamma! that is a secret," and Cecille now laughed with as much glee as if she had never cried in her life.

The old lady laughed too; but she said, "Take care, Cecille,—it is not well for little girls to have secrets from their grandmammas."

"This is a very harmless secret," said I.

Madame L'Estrange looked at me with some surprise as she said, "You know it then?"

"Yes," said I; "but you must not be jealous that Cecille chose me for her confidant, all little girls do. Mrs. Wilmot's children have just been consulting me on a very important secret."

"They told me about it to-day," said Cecille quickly, "and I asked them to let me tell grandmamma. They were quite willing I should, so you need not mind speaking of it."

The story of the examination and of the presents prepared for Mrs. Wilmot on that day, was soon told to Madame L'Estrange, who entered into the little plot of the children with great enjoyment. After we had talked of it a while, I said to Cecille that the bracelet Grace was preparing did not please Clara very much, and indeed I scarcely thought it handsome enough for the locket.

"I wish she had told me sooner," said Cecille, "I would have shown her how to weave a handsome one. I learned from a lady who came over from France with us. I have done several since I came here for Mr. Brenner the jeweller."

"Then perhaps you made the one which Clara wanted Grace to buy, and was half angry with her for not buying."

"I dare say it is one of mine; but if it is, Grace could not buy it, for it would cost two dollars and a half, and she had but little more than a dollar left after paving me to-day."

"How did you find that out, Cecille?" asked her grandmother.

"Because, grandmamma, Grace saw that I looked very sorry when Clara said she could not pay me, and she followed me out and begged me to take what she had left, and to pay her back when Clara paid me."

"You did not take it I hope, my dear."

"No, grandmamma, though I would have done it if I had not known that you would dislike it, and so I told Grace."

"You were right, Cecille, in not taking it. Better even weep as you have done to-day for an ungratified wish, than borrow money and perhaps be disappointed in your expectation of repaying it."

"I shall not be disappointed in that, grandmamma, for Clara says she will certainly pay me the next week."

"Clara no doubt once thought, my dear, that she would certainly pay you to-day. She may be mistaken again."

"Clara was very sorry, grandmamma," said Cecille kindly.

"I do not doubt it, my dear. She is, I dare say, a good little girl and means well, but she is thoughtless, or she would not have spent her money even on a present for Mrs. Wilmot before she had paid her debts. What she owed to you was in truth not her own, but yours."

"Grandmamma, don't be angry with Clara. You could not help loving her if you knew her, she is so generous."

"I am not angry with her, my dear. I do love her for her kindness to you, and from many things you have told me, I believe she is generous, but, Cecille, she is not just."

"That locket cost a great deal, I dare say, grandmamma, and then Clara gives something to everybody that asks for money. She is so generous."

"Generous but not just, Cecille, when she gives what she already owes to another."

I saw that Cecille was hardly satisfied with her grandmother's views of Clara, and yet they were so true that she could not oppose them.

For my part, I had been thinking of Grace. My readers will not have forgotten that Grace's having changed the bill she at first intended giving the blind man for a half dollar, and her contenting herself with giving her mother a bracelet of her own weaving, instead of spending money on her present, as the other girls had done, had made me fear that she might be a little selfish—that her money might be saved for some gratification that should be entirely her own. I now began to hope that Grace was not less generous, but that she was more just than Clara.

"Is not Grace generous too?" said I to Cecille.

"Is not Grace generous!" she repeated, as if surprised at my question.

"Have you ever thought that she was selfish?" I asked in yet stronger language.

"Grace selfish!" exclaimed, Cecille: "oh, no! I never saw her do a selfish thing."

"Do you think her as generous as Clara?"

"As generous as Clara," she again repeated, and then said doubtfully, "Clara is so generous."

"You do not think then that Grace takes as much pleasure in giving to another as Clara does?"

"Oh, yes! I think she does. Grace never seems so happy as when she happens to have what another person wants."

"In what then is she less generous than Clara?"

"Why"—Cecille stopped suddenly—thought a little, and then said, "I do not know what could have made me think so,—only that I never saw Grace give all that she had in her purse as I have seen Clara do."

"Perhaps that is because Grace remembers what Clara seems sometimes to forget, that she has no right to give away that which belongs to another."

"Clara does not give away what belongs to another."

"Does not Clara's father allow her as much money as Mrs. Wilmot allows Grace?"

"Yes—just the same."

"Then how is it that Grace could pay you and Clara could not? If Clara has given away what should have been paid to you, she has given away what did not belong to her. In her generosity she has forgotten justice, while Grace seems to have remembered, 'to be just before she was generous.'"

The clock striking twelve interrupted our conversation, by reminding me that it was time to return home.