"If you were a boy I'd fight you for that," cried the urchin angrily, clenching his fists.
"Pooh!" sniffed Bee, turning up her nose. "I would not be afraid of such a baby if I were six times a boy. Where's your mother?"
"She's home, asleep. What's yours thinking about that she lets you go wild like this? My mother said, when she saw you running through the fields one day, that she wondered what kind of a woman she could be to let you go like that. Where is she?"
"She is dead," answered the girl in a low voice. "I think your mother is horrid."
"She isn't. She's lovely. Everybody says so. I am sorry that yours is dead. You can't help being rude, of course, if you have no mother. Who looks after you?"
"Why, father, of course," answered Bee. "And I am not rude."
"What makes you run after butterflies and things, then?" demanded he sternly. "I saw you one day, and you had a worm—a great, ugly worm—in your hand."
Beatrice gave way to a burst of laughter.
"A worm?" cried she mirthfully. "Oh, you poor little thing! You don't know anything, do you? That was not a worm. It was a caterpillar."
"Well; what's the difference?"