"Where was that?" asked Bessie.
"Oh, in a great deal nicer place than this, far away down at the South," answered Belle.
"Oh!" said Maggie eagerly; "and what was your mamma's name?" she would have added, but, suddenly thinking that the mention of her mother might bring back the shadow to that sad little face, she checked herself.
She need not have feared. Her tongue once loosened on the subject of her beloved Southern home, Belle talked away about that and her dear mother in a manner which showed it did her good to speak of them; while her new friends listened with great interest.
"What was your mamma's name?" asked Maggie, at last venturing her interrupted question.
"Her name was Belle, like mine," said the child.
"Oh!" said Bessie joyfully; "then I think she must have been our mamma's friend."
"How very nice that would be!" said Maggie. "Belle, if your mamma and our mamma used to be friends, won't you be our 'inseparable'?"
"No," said Belle: "I don't think I'd like to be that kind of a thing."
"Do you know what it is?" asked Maggie, rather taken aback at this plump refusal to her friendly invitation.