"I can eat this one quite as well, sir," answered Belle, too truthful to say that she did really like the one as well as the other, and then added, "Lulu is so little, sir, I s'pose it makes more difference to her than to me."
She did not look at Mamie, nor did her manner seem to throw any blame on her; but the latter did feel thoroughly ashamed to think that a stranger should yield that which she had refused to give up for the sister over whom, at times, she made so much ado; and she ate her cake with very little real enjoyment. At first, too, she felt rather provoked with Belle for being more unselfish than herself; but presently that feeling passed away, and she looked at her with admiration, as she thought, "She is better than I, a great deal better."
For spoiled though she was, and at times extremely perverse, fretful, and selfish, there was much that was good in Mamie Stone; and one of her best qualities was that she was always quick to see and acknowledge what was worthy of praise in others, and she was also honest with herself, and ready to confess her faults.
But then the trouble was that she was too often satisfied with allowing that she had been wrong, and took little or no pains to correct herself, and to strive against such naughtiness for the future.
Of late, however, Mamie had felt the wish to be a better and more amiable child; and she would often please herself with imagining how she would grow less selfish and exacting, more willing to give up her own will to that of others, more obedient and respectful to her parents and elders.
But when the time arrived for these good resolutions to be put in practice they always seemed to fail her; temptation came in her way, some small trifle crossed her, and she saw herself, her own wilful, pettish, perhaps disobedient little self, not one whit improved by all those good resolutions and delightful dreams of the wonderfully good child she had intended to become.
Still she did honestly wish to do better; but she did not seem to know the right way to set about this; perhaps she had not a good motive; perhaps it was from the desire to have people say what a good girl she had become; how much she had improved; to receive such praise as she often heard bestowed upon some of her young companions,—Belle for instance.
"A kind, unselfish little girl," her father had called Belle; and Mamie would have been very much pleased to hear papa say that to her; but he never did,—and why? Because she never deserved it. Mamie felt that, although it did vex her that it was so. And she would really like to deserve it, she thought.
"But I never can remember in time," she said to herself. "I wonder how Belle does it. People used to say she was spoiled when she first came to this country, and knew Maggie and Bessie and all of us, and went to Miss Ashton's school; and now every one says she is so good and sweet; and so she is too. And she has a right not to be so good as me, too, I s'pose, 'cause she has no mother, and her father and old Daphne do spoil her dreadfully, every one knows that."