"'Is the other sister dead?' asked Fatima, pityingly, when we had
discussed our personal interest in the subject.

"'Oh, no! only married,' said my mother.

"It was decided that we should go. This decision was not arrived at at
once, or without some ups and downs. My mother could not go herself,
and had some doubts as to our being old enough, as yet, to go out
visiting alone. It will be believed that I made much of being able to
say--'But you know, I am thirteen, now.'

"Next day, in the evening, my father was busy in his study, and my
mother sat at the open window, with Fatima and me at her feet. The
letter of acceptance had been duly sent by the messenger, but she had
yet a good deal of advice to give, and some doubts to express. She was
one of those people who cannot sit with idle fingers, and as she
talked she knitted. We found it easy enough to sit idle upon two
little footstools, listening to the dear kind voice, and watching two
little clouds, fragments of a larger group, which had detached
themselves, and were sailing slowly and alone across the heavens.

"'They are like us two,' Fatima had whispered to me; 'perhaps they are
going to see some other clouds.'

"'I have observed two things which are apt to befall young people who
go out visiting,' said my mother, as she turned a row in her knitting,
'one is, that they neglect little good habits while they are away, and
the other is, that they make themselves very disagreeable when they
come back.'