But the afternoons were truly dreadful.

She must sit through the long hot hours, close by the seamstress, almost smothered by the big piece of cotton cloth, which her little fingers could hardly manage, and she grew restless and irritable, for her hands were moist, and the needle refused to be driven through the thick cloth.

How often she glanced up at the clock on the wall during those long hours, when the minute hand was surely stuck at half-past three, and the regular tic-tac seemed to fill the quiet room with its sleepy droning.

So hot, so still, so long were the hours of those summer afternoons! The silence was broken now and then by the sounds of a distant piano.
"What a happy child that must be!" thought little Dora, "who can sit at the piano and practise exercises, and all sorts of pretty tunes!" She could think of nothing more delightful; she listened with hungry ears, and drank in every note that reached her.

In the narrow street where the seamstress lived she could hear the music distinctly, for no wagons passed, and the voices of foot-passengers did not reach up so high as to her room.