now."

"The time seems to move slowly with you, mamma. It is scarcely a quarter
of an hour since I told you it was but ten minutes past six."

"I am so thirsty!" announced the poor invalid. "Do go and look at the
clock again, Barbara."

Barbara Hare rose with a gesture of impatience, not suppressed, opened
the door, and glanced at the large clock in the hall. "It wants nine and
twenty minutes to seven, mamma. I wish you would put your watch on of a
day; four times you have sent me to look at that clock since dinner."

"I am so thirsty!" repeated Mrs. Hare, with a sort of sob. "If seven
o'clock would but strike! I am dying for my tea."

It may occur to the reader, that a lady in her own house, "dying for her
tea," might surely order it brought in, although the customary hour had
not struck. Not so Mrs. Hare. Since her husband had first brought her
home to that house, four and twenty-years ago, she had never dared to
express a will in it; scarcely, on her own responsibility, to give
an order. Justice Hare was stern, imperative, obstinate, and
self-conceited; she, timid, gentle and submissive. She had loved him
with all her heart, and her life had been one long yielding of her will
to his; in fact, she had no will; his was all in all. Far was she from
feeling the servitude a yoke: some natures do not: and to do Mr. Hare
justice, his powerful will that _must_ bear down all before it, was in
fault: not his kindness: he never meant to be unkind to his wife. Of his
three children, Barbara alone had inherited his will.

"Barbara," began Mrs. Hare again, when she thought another quarter of an
hour at least must have elapsed.

"Well, mamma?"

"Ring, and tell them to be getting it in readiness so that when seven
strikes there may be no delay."

"Goodness, mamma! You know they do always have it ready. And there's
no such hurry, for papa may not be at home." But she rose, and rang the
bell with a petulant motion, and when the man answered it, told him to
have tea in to its time.

"If you knew dear, how dry my throat is, how parched my mouth, you would
have more patience with me."

Barbara closed her book with a listless air, and turned listlessly to
the window. She seemed tired, not with fatigue but with what the French
express by the word _ennui_. "Here comes papa," she presently said.

"Oh, I am so glad!" cried poor Mrs. Hare. "Perhaps he will not mind
having the tea in at once, if I told him how thirsty _I_ am."