"I perfer not to tell you," answered Belle, with magnificence.
"Why?" asked Gracie.
"If your guilty conscience don't tell you, it's no use for me to speak about it," replied Belle, with well-deserved severity, supposed to be kept within the bounds of courteousness.
Gracie gave her head a little toss, as much as to say that Belle's opinion was quite beneath her notice; but that her "guilty conscience" did accuse her was to be seen from the fact that she questioned no more of her classmates, but said conceitedly,—
"I finished my petticoat the very Saturday after I took it;" and then looked about her for the applause which no one had the mind to offer.
It was strange that the frequency of the disappointments of this nature which she received did not teach Gracie that those who sought the most eagerly for food for their own vanity were not the most apt to receive it; but her insatiable self-conceit needed some severe teaching before it would lose its hold of her, and such slight blows as these were without much effect on the still increasing evil.
"I am sure I could easily have made two if I had chosen," continued Gracie. "It is nothing so very great to make a petticoat in a week."
"I don't know," said Nellie, who seldom bore malice, "I think it is pretty well for little girls to make one in two weeks. I am slow, I know, but as Lily said,—poor dear Lily,—I am a steady tortoise after all, and have done my task in time."
"Is Lily's petticoat finished?" asked Mabel. "Does any one know?"