"Your conscience need not trouble itself about my doings," said Mary sharply.
"But, Bessie," put in Fanny Berry, anxious to turn aside the threatened quarrel, "suppose your mother told you to do one thing, and Miss Ashton told you to do just the opposite. What then?"
"Course I'd mind my own mamma," said Bessie; "but I don't believe Miss Ashton would tell me to do what mamma did not want me to. I think she is very good and nice, and I am sure she wouldn't want little girls to be dis'bedient."
"Maybe not," said Fanny. "But suppose she ordered you to do something which your mamma had not forbidden, but of which you were sure she would disapprove: how then?"
"I'd say, 'Please to 'scuse me, ma'am; but 'tis quite unpossible.'"
The girls laughed.
"But you are expected to mind your teachers when you come to school," said Kate; "and you promised Mrs. Ashton you would be obedient; did you not?"
"Yes," said Bessie, "but"—she paused, and leaned her cheek thoughtfully on one little hand, while she drew the forefinger of the other slowly over the buttons of Kate's dress. She knew very well how she felt about it herself, and that she was right; but she could not seem to make these teasing girls understand how it was. She had a suspicion that they were laughing at her too; and she began to feel angry, as was plainly to be seen by her rising colour and trembling lip; and Kate, who was already sorry for her carelessness in troubling the sensitive conscience and puzzling the thoughtful little head, said coaxingly, "You are not vexed, Bessie?"
Bessie looked gravely at her for a moment; and then, as the angry flush faded away, she answered, "I believe I was going to be."
"And you've changed your mind, have you?" asked Mary Morton.