When she went up stairs to get the handkerchief out of her drawer she saw her bureau was yet in disorder. "Mamma will be displeased to see this," she thought, "and I shall have time enough to put it in order and hem papa's handkerchief beside." She went eagerly to work, but the bureau took her longer than she anticipated, and when her father came home to dinner she had not finished his handkerchief. Now she made her needle fly, but her industry came too late; her father could not wait, and Emily had the mortification of hearing him say: "I hope my handkerchief will not be like my gloves, that you kept so long to mend, and mamma had to finish after all." She cried bitterly after he was gone, but managed through her tears to finish the handkerchief at last, and carried it to her mother, asking her to beg her papa's forgiveness. After tea was over, Mrs. Manvers called Emily to her, and folding her arm fondly around the little girl's waist, pointed to a small book lying open upon the table, saying as she did so: "Do you remember, my love, our conversation last Saturday night upon the subject of your gifts?" "Oh, yes, mamma, and you told me you would keep an account of my ill-usage of one of them." "I have done so, my dear, and now tell me can you not imagine what this gift is which you so much abuse?" "Indeed, I cannot, mamma," replied the little girl with a sigh. Mrs. Manvers placed the memorandum book in her daughter's hand without saying a word. There, written at the head of the page, were these words: "_Emily's Waste of Time._" and beneath was quite a long column of figures, and a list of duties unfulfilled. "Oh, mamma," cried Emily, throwing herself upon her mother's breast, "it is time, precious time, that is the gift I waste; but surely I have not spent so many idle minutes in just one week." "I am sorry to say that you have, my dear daughter, all these and even more. I have promised to keep an account, and I have done so; add them up and see how many there are." Emily added up the figures with tearful eyes, and said, "there are four hundred and twenty, mamma." "And how many hours does that make, Emily?" The little girl thought a moment, and then answered, "Seven hours." "Very well; then you see you waste seven hours in a week, which would make three hundred and sixty-four in a year, and if you should live the allotted period of life, which would be sixty years from the present time, you will willfully waste twenty one thousand eight hundred and forty hours of the precious time God has given you in which to work out His will." "Oh, dear mamma, it does not seem possible; I am sure I don't know how the time slips away," said Emily, sadly.