"Don't be a little hypocrite, Beatrix; why should I more than another? Friends are not picked up like daisies as we walk along. If you have neither mother nor sisters, nor kith nor kin to care about you, you will find it hard to make strangers do so. As for old Lady Alice, I think she always hated me; she did nothing but pick holes in everything I said or did; I never heard anything from her but the old story of my faults. And then I was thrown among women of the world--heartless, headless creatures. I don't blame them, they knew no better--perhaps there is no better; but I do blame that egotistical old woman, who, if she had but controlled her temper, might have been of so much use to me, and _would_ not. Religion, and good principles, and all that, whether it is true or false, is the safest plan; and I think if she had been moderately kind and patient, she might have made me as good as others. Don't look at me as if I had two heads, dear. I'm not charging myself with any enormity. I only say it is the happiest way, even if it be the way of fools." "Shall we play any more?" inquired Beatrix, after a sufficient pause had intervened to soften the transition. "Yes, certainly. Which is my ball?" "The red. You are behind your hoop." "Yes; and--and it seems to me, Beatrix, you are a cold little stick, like your grandmamma, as you call her, though she's no grandmamma of yours." "Think me as stupid as you please, but you must not think me cold; and, indeed, you wrong poor old granny." "We'll talk no more of her. I think her a fool and a savage. Come, it's your turn, is not it, to play?" So the play went on for a while in silence, except for those questions and comments without which it can hardly proceed. "And now you have won, have not you?" said Lady Jane. "Should you like another game?" asked Beatrix. "Maybe by-and-by; and--I sometimes wish you liked me, Beatrix; but I don't know you, and you are little better than a child still; and--no--it could not be--it never could--you'd be sure to hate me in a little while." "But I do like you, Lady Jane. I liked you very much in London, you were so kind; and I don't know why you were so changed to me when you came here; you seem to have taken a positive dislike to me." "So I had, child--I detested you," said Lady Jane, but in a tone that had something mocking in it. "Everything has grown--how shall I express it?--disgusting to me--yes, _disgusting_. You had done nothing to cause it; you need not look so contrite. I could not help it either. I am odious--and I can't love or like anybody." "I am sure, Lady Jane, you are not at all like what you describe." "You think me faultless, do you?" Beatrix smiled. "Well, I see you don't. What _is_ my fault?" demanded Lady Jane, looking on her not with a playful, but with a lowering countenance. "It is a very conceited office--pointing out other people's faults, even if one understood them, which I do not."