"It would indeed bring me trouble," she thought, as she walked home more slowly than usual that the fresh air might take away the redness from her eyes before her mother saw her. "I know Mrs. Vincent would never forgive me if she thought I had exaggerated or misrepresented. I'm sure I didn't want to blame Bee; but I was so startled; and Mrs. Vincent seemed to think so much less of it when I let her suppose they had both been careless and tiresome. But it has been a lesson to me. And Beata is very good. I could never say a word against her again."
Miss Vincent arrived, and with her, of course, her maid Nelson. Everything went off most pleasantly the first evening. Aunt Edith seemed delighted to see Rosy again, and that was only kind and natural. And she said to every one how well Rosy was looking, and how much she was grown, and said, too, how nice it was for her to have a companion of her own age. She had been so pleased to hear about little Miss Warwick from Cecy Furnivale, whom she had seen lately.
Bee stared rather at this. She hardly knew herself under the name of little Miss Warwick; but she answered Miss Vincent's questions in her usual simple way, and told Rosy, when they went up to bed, that she did not wonder she loved her aunt—she seemed so very kind.
"Yes," said Rosy. Then she sat still for a minute or two, as if she was thinking over something very deeply. "I don't think I'd like to go back to live with auntie," she said at last.
"To leave your mother! No, of course you wouldn't," exclaimed Bee, as if there could be no doubt about the matter.
"But I did think once I would," said Rosy, nodding her head—"I did."
"I don't believe you really did," said Bee calmly. "Perhaps you thought you did when you were vexed about something."
"Well, I don't see much difference between wanting a thing, and thinking you want it," said Rosy.
This was one of the speeches which Bee did not find it very easy to answer all at once, so she told Rosy she would think it over in her dreams, for she was very sleepy, and she was sure Aunt Lillias would be vexed if they didn't go to bed quickly.