"Isn't dinner ready yet?" he said, with fretful impatience, his
whole manner changing suddenly. "I'm hungry."

"It will be ready in a few minutes, Clarence."

"I want it now. I'm hungry."

"Did you ever hear of the man," said Mrs. Hartley, in a voice that
showed no disturbance of mind, "who wanted the sun to rise an hour
before its time?"

"No, mother. Tell me about it, won't you?"

All impatience had vanished from the boy's face.

"There was a man who had to go upon a journey; the stage-coach was
to call for him at sun-rise. More than an hour before it was time
for the sun to be up, the man was all ready to go, and for the whole
of that hour he walked the floor impatiently, grumbling at the sun
because he did not rise. 'I'm all ready, and I want to be going,' he
said. 'It's time the sun was up, long ago.' Don't you think he was a
very foolish man?"

Clarence laughed, and said he thought the man was very foolish
indeed.

"Do you think he was more foolish than you were just now for
grumbling because dinner wasn't ready?"

Clarence laughed again, and said he did not know. Just then Hannah,