"You want me to say I'm sorry 'cause I said that to you the other day, and I am sorry. Mamma said it was saucy. But I didn't mean to be saucy. I didn't know how to help it, you asked me so much."
"You need not be sorry, Bessie. I deserved it, and it was not that I was going to speak about. I wanted to ask you to forgive me for being so unkind to you. Will you?"
"Oh, yes, ma'am! I did forgave you that day, and mamma told me something which made me very sorry for you."
"What was it? Would she like you to repeat it?"
"I guess she wont care. She said your father and mother died when you were a little baby, and you had a great deal of money, more than was good for you, and you had no one to tell you how to take care of it; so if you did things you ought not to, we ought to be sorry for you, and not talk much about them."
Miss Adams stood silent a moment, and then she said, slowly,—
"Yes, if my mother had lived, Bessie, I might have been different. I suppose I do many things I should not do if I had a mother to care about it; but there is no one to care, and I don't know why I should myself. I may as well take my fun."
"Miss Adams," said Bessie, "hasn't your mother gone to heaven?"
"Yes, I suppose so," said the young lady, looking a little startled,—"yes, I am sure of it. They say she was a good woman."