Lizzie asked her, laughing outright, whether she ever saw her own face or heard her own voice?
“I suppose so,” returned Bella; “I look in the glass often enough, and I chatter like a magpie.”
“I have seen your face, and heard your voice, at any rate,” said Lizzie, “and they have tempted me to say to you—with a certainty of not going wrong—what I thought I should never say to anyone. Does that look ill?”
“No, I hope it doesn’t,” pouted Bella, stopping herself in something between a humoured laugh and a humoured sob.
“I used once to see pictures in the fire,” said Lizzie playfully, “to please my brother. Shall I tell you what I see down there where the fire is glowing?”
They had risen, and were standing on the hearth, the time being come for separating; each had drawn an arm around the other to take leave.
“Shall I tell you,” asked Lizzie, “what I see down there?”
“Limited little b?” suggested Bella with her eyebrows raised.
“A heart well worth winning, and well won. A heart that, once won, goes through fire and water for the winner, and never changes, and is never daunted.”
“Girl’s heart?” asked Bella, with accompanying eyebrows.
Lizzie nodded. “And the figure to which it belongs—”