Bee looked very grave.
"Miss Pink," she said, "I don't like you to speak like that at all. You don't say to Rosy to her face that you think her so naughty, and so I don't think you should say it to me. I think it would be better if you said to Rosy herself what you think."
"I couldn't," said Miss Pink. "There would be no staying with her if I didn't give in to her. And I don't want to lose this engagement, for it's so near my home, and my mother is so often ill. And Mr. and Mrs. Vincent have been very kind—very kind indeed."
"I think Rosy would like you better if you told her right out what you think," said Bee, who couldn't help being sorry for Miss Pinkerton when she spoke of her mother being ill. And Miss Pink was really kind-hearted, only she did not distinguish between weak indulgence and real sensible kindness.
When lessons were over Mrs. Vincent called Bee to come and speak to her.
"It is Mr. Furnivale who is coming to see us to-day," she said. "It is for that I am so particularly sorry for Rosy to be again in disgrace. And she has been so much gentler and more obedient lately, I am really very disappointed, and I cannot help saying so to you, Bee, though I don't want you to be troubled about Rosy."
"I do think Rosy wants—" began Bee, and then she stopped, remembering her promise. "Don't you think she will be sorry now?" she said. "Might I go and ask her?"
"No, dear, I think you had better not," said Mrs. Vincent. "I will see her myself in a little while. Yes, I believe she is sorry, but she won't let herself say so."
Beata felt sad and dull without Rosy; for the last few days had really passed happily. And Rosy shut up in her own room was thinking with a sort of bitter vexation rather than sorrow of how quickly her resolutions had all come to nothing.
"It's not my fault," she kept saying to herself, "it's all Miss Pink's. She knew I hated sums—that horrid kind of long rows worst of all—and she just gave me them on purpose; and then when I said I wouldn't do them, she went on coaxing and talking nonsense—that way that just makes me naughtier. I'd rather do sums all day than have her talk like that—and then to go and tell stories to mamma—I hate her, nasty, pretending thing. It's all her fault; and then she'll be going on praising Bee, and making everybody think how good Bee is and how naughty I am. I wish Bee hadn't come. I didn't mind it so much before. I wonder if she told mamma as she said she would, and if that was why mamma came in to the schoolroom this morning. I wonder if Bee could be so mean;" and in this new idea Rosy almost forgot her other troubles. "If Bee did do it I shall never forgive her—never," she went on to herself; "I wouldn't have minded her doing it right out, as she said she would, but to go and tell mamma that sneaky way, and get her to come into the room just at that minute, no, I'll never—"