Belle stood looking on with pretended indifference, for she did not want the girls should know how much she cared about it.
"All that vote for Belle hold up a bunch of berries; and all that vote for Nannie hold up an oak leaf."
The girls laughed, and held up their hands. There were six oak leaves, and only two bunches of berries.
"I'd rather Belle would be queen," said Nannie, though it cost a little effort to say it; for she was as much pleased with the honour as any one.
"But we had rather not," the girls said. "You cannot help yourself; so sit down while we make your crown."
Belle was too proud to show her disappointment, so she sat down and helped to make the crown. Very pretty she looked as she sat on the mossy bank, while her hands worked in and out among the bright coloured leaves. A stranger looking at the two sisters, would have wondered why the girls had passed by Belle, and chosen the plain though pleasant-faced Nannie. So one would think that looked only on the outside; but could one have looked within, they would soon have understood the reason of the choice.
After the crowning of the queen, which was performed with all due ceremony, the children went home, following Stony Brook till it poured its waters into the little river on which the village was built.
After they reached home, Belle went upstairs, and sitting down by the window, gave free vent to the angry thoughts she had been keeping under all the afternoon.
"I don't see," she said to herself at last, "what makes the difference. I know I'm a great deal prettier than Nannie;" and she went across and looked at herself in the glass. "Yes, I am a great deal prettier, and yet the girls all love Nannie better. And I can learn a lesson twice as quick, and yet Miss Taylor likes Nannie better than me, and helps her out of all her difficulties. And father, and mother, and sister Mary, all think there's nobody like Nannie, and they are always scolding me for something or other. I wish people would love me as they do Nannie. I would rather be the ugliest person in the world and be loved." She was silent for a moment, while conscience brought before her all the kind acts Nannie was always doing for somebody. How ready she was to give up her own pleasure, and do anything for others. Then she went off into a pleasant day-dream, in which she was very good, always did just right, and everybody loved her. All the old women in the village thought no one could do anything for them like Belle Merry; her mother thought she never could spare Belle, and Charlie was never satisfied when Belle was away. She forgot, when she was dreaming, how, when her father said Granny Burt had no one to read to her, she said "she hadn't time to read to an old woman."
She forgot how often, when her mother had asked for some little help, it had been given so pettishly as to make that mother's face grow sad. She forgot how often, when Charlie had made some little request for entertainment, she had turned away, until now he never asked Belle for anything when Nannie was in the room. Yes, she forgot all this, she forgot all the hard part of doing right, and her dream was very pleasant—so pleasant, that at last she said, with great determination, "I mean to be so kind and good, that they will all love me. I'm going to try. I'll begin at once, to-night."