"Lots of times," Rosy replied. "Martha's said so, and Colin says so when he's vexed with me. He's always said so," she added, as if she didn't quite like owning it, but felt that she must. "He said I was spoilt before you came home, but auntie wouldn't let him. She thought I was quite good," and Rosy reared up her head as if she thought so too.
"I am very sorry to hear you speak so," said her mother. "I think if you ask yourself, Rosy, you will very often find that you are not good, and if you see and understand that when you are not good it is nobody's fault but your own, you will surely try to be better. You must not say it was your aunt's fault, or anybody's fault. Your aunt was only too kind to you, and I will never allow you to blame her."
"I wasn't good last night," said Rosy. "I doubled up my hand and I hit Colin, 'cos I got in a temper. I was going to tell you—I meant to tell you."
"And are you sorry for it now, Rosy dear?" asked her mother, very gently.
Rosy looked at her in surprise. Her mother spoke so gently. She had rather expected her to be shocked—she had almost, if you can understand, wished her to be shocked, so that she could say to herself how naughty everybody thought her, how it was no use her trying to be good and all the rest of it—and she had told over what she had done in a hard, unsorry way, almost on purpose. But now, when her mother spoke so kindly, a different feeling came into her heart. She looked at her mother, and then she looked down on the ground, and then, almost to her own surprise, she answered, almost humbly,
"I don't know. I don't think I was, but I think I am a little sorry now."
Seeing her so unusually gentle, her mother went a little further. "What made you so vexed with Colin?" she asked. Rosy's face hardened.
"Mother," she said, "you'd better not ask me. It was because of something he said that I don't want to tell you."
"About Beata?" asked her mother.
"Well," said Rosy, "if you know about it, it isn't my fault if you are vexed. I don't want her to come—I don't want any little girl to come, because I know I shan't like her. I like boys better than girls, and I don't like good little girls at all."