"There you go, Bessie! He's made all this trouble for you, and you're standing up for him already."
"No, I'm not. But what trouble has he made for me, Zara? I'm going to be happier than I ever was back there in Hedgeville—and if it hadn't been for him I'd still be there, and I'd be chopping wood or something right now."
"But he didn't mean to make you happier, Bessie. He thought he could get you punished for something he'd done."
"Well, I wasn't, so why should I be angry at him, Zara? Even if he did mean to be nasty, he wasn't."
"But suppose he'd hurt you some way, without meaning to at all? Would you be angry at him then for hurting you, when he didn't mean to do it?"
"Of course not—just because he didn't mean to."
"Well, then," said Zara, triumphantly, "you ought to be angry now, if it's what one means to do, and not what one does that counts. I would be."
Bessie laughed. For once Zara seemed to have trapped her and beaten her in an argument.
"But I don't like to be angry, and to feel revengeful," she said. "It hurts me more than it does the other person. When anything happens that isn't nice it only bothers you as long as you keep on thinking about it, Zara. Suppose someone threw a stone at you, and hit you?"
"It would hurt me—and I'd want to throw it back."