"And do you think that?" said Beata, anxiously. A feeling like a cold chill seemed to have touched her heart. She had never before thought of such things—loving somebody else "better," not being "the favourite," and so on. Could it all be true, and could it, worst of all, be true that her coming might be the cause of trouble and vexation to other people—at least to Rosy? She had come so full of love and gratitude, so ready to like everybody; she had said so many times to her mother, "I'm sure I'll be happy. I'll write and tell you how happy I am," swallowing bravely the grief of leaving her mother, and trying to cheer her at the parting by telling her this—it seemed very hard and strange to little Beata to be told that anybody could think she could be the cause of unhappiness to any one. "Do you think that?" she repeated.
Rosy looked at her, and something in the little eager face gave her what she would have called a "sorry" feeling. But mixed with this was a sense of importance—she liked to think that she was very good for not feeling what she said "some little girls" would have felt.
"No," she said, rather patronisingly, "I don't think I do. I only said some little girls would. No, I think I shall like you, if only you don't make a fuss about how good you are, and set them all against me. I settled before you came that I wouldn't mind if you were pretty or very clever. And you're not pretty, and I daresay you're not very clever. So I won't mind, if you don't make everybody praise you up for being so good."
Beata's eyes filled with tears.
"I don't want anybody to praise me," she said. "I only wanted you all to love me," and again Rosy had the sorry feeling, though she did not feel that she was to blame.
"I only told her what I really thought," she said to herself; but before she had time to reflect that there are two ways of telling what one thinks, and that sometimes it is not only foolish, but wrong and unkind, to tell of thoughts and feelings which we should try to leave off having, her mother turned round to speak to her.
"I think we should take Beata upstairs to her room, Rosy," she said. "You must be tired, dear," and the kind words and tone, so like what her own mother's would have been, made the cup of Beata's distress overflow. She gave a little sob and then burst into tears. Rosy half sprang forward—she was on the point of throwing her arms round Beata and whispering, "I will love you, dear, I do love you;" but alas, the strange foolish pride that so often checked her good feelings, held her back, and jealousy whispered, "If you begin making such a fuss about her, she'll think she's to be before you, and very likely, if you seem so sorry, she'll tell your mother you made her cry." So Rosy stood still, grave and silent, but with some trouble in her face, and her mother felt a little, just a very little vexed with Beata for beginning so dolefully.
"It will discourage Rosy," she said to herself, "just when I was so anxious for Beata to win her affection from the first."
And Beata's uncle, too, looked disappointed. Just when he had been praising her so for her bravery!
"Why, my little girl," he said, "you didn't cry like this even when you said good-bye at Southampton."