"I wish I didn't," sighed Alice, "but I do, more than anything."
"Well, you are so pretty that you are sure of being liked, whatever you do. People always like pretty women," said Joanna.
"I don't think so. I'd much rather have been clever. People get tired of prettiness, but they never do of cleverness."
"Then do you think it is because you are not clever, but only pretty, that Edgar has got tired of you?" inquired the blunt Joanna, showing her inexperience of the ways of men by the use of so absurd an expression as "only pretty".
"I don't think that explains it. Of course I know that Edgar could not care much for anybody as stupid as I am, but I think it is horrid of him to positively dislike me for not being clever. It really isn't my fault. I try awfully hard to be clever, but I find it so difficult to understand things. And Edgar is generally so just to people, and so tender to their failings, that it makes it all the nastier for me."
"But are you sure he positively dislikes you? Perhaps you only bore him," suggested Joanna.
"Oh! I should not be a bit surprised if I bored him; in fact I should be surprised if I did anything else. Most people bore Edgar, you know, and yet he is always kind and courteous to them."
"And isn't he kind and courteous to you?"
Alice's pretty eyes filled with tears. "No, he isn't, and that shows how much he must hate me. He is more civil to his mother's housekeeper than he is to me; and I mind it dreadfully, because he and I used to be such friends."
"What does he do?"