“Not so poor as you think, my dear,” returned Bella, “if you knew all.” Indeed, though attained by some wonderful winding narrow stairs, which seemed to have been erected in a pure white chimney, and though very low in the ceiling, and very rugged in the floor, and rather blinking as to the proportions of its lattice window, it was a pleasanter room than that despised chamber once at home, in which Bella had first bemoaned the miseries of taking lodgers.

The day was closing as the two girls looked at one another by the fireside. The dusky room was lighted by the fire. The grate might have been the old brazier, and the glow might have been the old hollow down by the flare.

“It’s quite new to me,” said Lizzie, “to be visited by a lady so nearly of my own age, and so pretty, as you. It’s a pleasure to me to look at you.”

“I have nothing left to begin with,” returned Bella, blushing, “because I was going to say that it was a pleasure to me to look at you, Lizzie. But we can begin without a beginning, can’t we?”