"Then I wont say it," said Bessie; "but when a thing looks—looks that way, what shall I say?"
"You might say ugly," said Mr. Bradford.
"But, papa, sometimes a thing looks ugly, and not nasty. I think that animal looks ugly and nasty too."
"Tell us of something that is ugly, but not nasty," said Uncle John.
Bessie looked very hard at her uncle. Now Mr. Duncan was not at all a handsome man. He had a pleasant, merry, good-natured face, but he was certainly no beauty. Bessie looked at him, and he looked back at her, with his eyes twinkling, and the corners of his mouth twitching with a smile, for he thought he knew what was coming.
"Well?" he said, when Bessie did not speak for a moment.
"Uncle John," said she, very gravely, "I think you are ugly, but I do not think you are nasty, a bit."
Uncle John laughed as if he thought this a capital joke; and Mr. Bradford smiled as he said, "It don't do to ask Bessie questions to which you do not want a straightforward answer."