“Oh, I _must_ see why you say that!” Bella stopped and tried the fastening. Hildegarde rushed at her, but Bella fled at each approach. At last the big girl stopped breathless, and tried moral suasion. The little girl only laughed, and standing just out of reach had the effrontery to open the locket and make unseemly comment upon what she found within. “My gracious! _Isn’t_ he a sweet? Where does he live? Does he go to church? I’m sure _I’ve_ never seen this bee-yew-tiful young man before. Girls, do you want to look at Miss Mar’s sweetheart. Come and see this darling duck!” She summoned the laughing group that had been looking on. But Bella only pretended to show them. Every time anybody came near, she covered the face with her thumb. But Hildegarde, lacking the small satisfaction of knowing that, worn out with the race and scarlet with indignation, breathless, outraged, pursued the fleet little villain from group to group, and after the bell rang, from garden to hall. In vain. When Bella appeared at the breaking up of school that day, and restored the locket, Miss Mar received it in a lofty silence, refusing even to look at a little girl so ill-mannered and ungrateful. But the next day Bella, much subdued by one of her recurrent attacks of homesickness, red-eyed, a little pinched-looking and woebegone, begged pardon so prettily, that Miss Mar’s heart was melted. “And I didn’t really show it to the others. Ask anybody. I wouldn’t do _that_. Oh, no!” And then betraying the true ground of this pious self-control, “Is it your brother?” “No.” Hildegarde bent her head over the slate. “Who is it?” “A friend of my father’s.” “Do you love him dreadfully?” “Of _course_ not. I never saw him.” “What makes you wear his picture?” “I only put it in the locket because I hadn’t anything else the right size. That’s all.” “Then why did you make such a fuss when I—” “Because I thought it very rude of you to look into somebody else’s locket without permission. And it _might_ have been something that mattered.” There was that in the unconverted look on the little face which made Hildegarde hot to her ear-tips. But Bella said not a word, only smiled with that returning interest in life that so readily revives in the breast of the shrewd observer. And without a “please” or a “will you?” Bella handed the big girl her slate, with its two days’ accumulation of fractions and of dragons. Hildegarde’s sensibilities were once more so outraged that for a moment she hesitated to accept the task so coolly put upon her. “I believe you’re a little monster,” said Miss Mar, in her slow way. “I don’t see why I should trouble myself about you or your arithmetic.” “I know why,” returned Bella, unmoved. “Why?” “Because you’re the nicest of all the big girls.” Hildegarde tried to conceal the fact that she was somewhat softened by this tribute. “I’m not really the nicest,” she said, trying to be modest.