“It’s for a little girl down at the steamer, who is rather hard off, and does not have a nice time, and has extremely ugly clothes,” answered Bessie. “But then if they are the best she has, and she has no mother, no one ought to laugh at her: ought they?”
“Certainly not: who was so unkind?” asked Mrs. Gordon.
“Some children who didn’t behave half so nice as she did, ma’am.”
“Ah!” said the doctor; “and was that boy you were talking to just now one of them?”
“Why, yes, sir,” said Bessie, with some hesitation. “But how did you know it?”
“Oh! I am a good guesser,” answered Dr. Gordon.
“I don’t know if I ought to have said that to him,” said Bessie, thoughtfully. “I b’lieve I was pretty severe.”
At this Mrs. Gordon went off into another fit of laughter; and the doctor smiled as he answered,—