"Yes, I'll come. Though I do want most dreadfully to see my Marjory, but I promised I wouldn't be naughty."
Here was something new, certainly. Julia revolved the matter in her mind for some seconds, as they proceeded by the muddy footpath. Mittie's voice interrupted her cogitations.
"Don't you love Marjory, Aunt Julia?"
"I hardly know Miss Fitzalan," Julia answered.
"Well, I do. I love her, oh, ever so much. She is as good us can be, a great deal gooder than cousin Hermione, only Marjory won't let me say so, but I know it all the same. There's a funny old woman down in the village, and I went to see her with Marjory, and she calls cousin Hermione an angel. Isn't that funny? O yes, and so does old Sutton. He says cousin Hermione only wants wings. I did laugh so; I couldn't help laughing, though Marjory made a face at me to stop. It was so funny to think of cousin Hermione having wings; but I think Marjory is a great deal more like an angel than cousin Hermione, because you know she is so kind to everybody, and cousin Hermione isn't kind to everybody. She isn't kind to you, nor mother, nor me. I don't mean that she's 'xactly unkind, you know, but she makes up a sort of proper face, like that—" Mittie pursed her lips together and stared solemnly ahead for two seconds, "and she won't smile nor have any fun. When she speaks to the servants or anybody that's poor she smiles as pretty as can be, but not to us, Aunt Julia."
"Little girls must not make remarks on grown-up people," Julia replied, somewhat startled by the amount of infantine penetration.
Mittie looked thoughtful. Was she impressed by the rebuke?
"Aunt Julia," came at length, with portentous seriousness, "should you think the angels haven't never any fun?"
"Really, Mittie—"
"Well, I asked Marjory one day, 'cause I wanted to know. And Marjory said there was lots in the Bible about singing, and laughing, and being merry—only she said it has got to be the right sort. I suppose cousin Hermione hasn't learnt the right sort. I think she's dull, and Marjory says the angels are never dull. Marjory is dull sometimes, when her back aches so; but I do think she's a great great deal more like the angels than cousin Hermione. She's always so good and dear, and she never grumbles, and she does such lots for everybody, and she loves me, and I love her—heaps!"