Bella kissed her on the cheek, and thanked her warmly for her confidence. “I only wish,” said Bella, “I was more deserving of it.”
“More deserving of it?” repeated Lizzie, with an incredulous smile.
“I don’t mean in respect of keeping it,” said Bella, “because anyone should tear me to bits before getting at a syllable of it—though there’s no merit in that, for I am naturally as obstinate as a pig. What I mean is, Lizzie, that I am a mere impertinent piece of conceit, and you shame me.”
Lizzie put up the pretty brown hair that came tumbling down, owing to the energy with which Bella shook her head; and she remonstrated while thus engaged, “My dear!”
“Oh, it’s all very well to call me your dear,” said Bella, with a pettish whimper, “and I am glad to be called so, though I have slight enough claim to be. But I am such a nasty little thing!”
“My dear!” urged Lizzie again.
“Such a shallow, cold, worldly, limited little brute!” said Bella, bringing out her last adjective with culminating force.
“Do you think,” inquired Lizzie with her quiet smile, the hair being now secured, “that I don’t know better?”
“ Do you know better though?” said Bella. “Do you really believe you know better? Oh, I should be so glad if you did know better, but I am so very much afraid that I must know best!”