"Better than any one else?" asked Hattie.
"No," said Fanny, rather indignantly; "there's lots of the children that are just as good as she is. She's not the best one in the school at all. She's good enough, but not so wonderful."
"She thinks she is," said Hattie.
"That's nothing," answered Fanny; "people's thinking they are a thing don't make them that thing, you know."
"Then you think Gracie is conceited and thinks a great deal of herself, do you?" asked Hattie.
"Why, yes," answered Fanny, though half reluctantly; "no one could help thinking that, you know."
Fanny expressed herself in this manner more as a way of excusing her own opinion of Gracie than as accusing her little playmate.
"Who do you think is the best child in all the school?" asked Hattie.
"Well," answered Fanny, after a moment's reflection, "I b'lieve Belle Powers is. At least I think it is the best in her to be as good as she is, for she has to try pretty hard sometimes."
"Why?" asked inquisitive Hattie again.
"Because she has no mother, and she has always been a good deal spoiled by her papa and her old nurse. But I never saw any child who wanted to be good more than Belle, and she tries very much; and we are all very fond of her, and Miss Ashton excuses her things sometimes because she is sorry for her."
"Don't that make you mad?" said Hattie.
"No," answered Fanny with much energy; "we'd be real mean if we were mad when Belle has no mother. No, indeed; no one could bear to have Belle scolded; we all love her too much."
Now this was seemingly a most innocent conversation; was it not? and one could hardly have supposed that it would have made trouble for poor Fanny as it did.
Gracie and Fanny lived within a few doors of one another, the latter a little nearer to Miss Ashton's house than the former; and Gracie was in the habit of stopping for Fanny on her way to school that they might walk there together.
But one morning a day or two after this, Fanny, standing by the window and watching for her young friend as usual, saw her go by with her maid without so much as turning her head or casting her eye up at the window where she must know Fanny awaited her.
"It is the queerest thing I ever knew," said Fanny to her father as she walked along by his side a few moments later; "it 'most seems as if Gracie was offended with me to do so; but then she can't be, for I have not done a thing to her. I shall ask her right away, as soon as I am at school."
But Fanny was only just in time to take off her hat and cloak and go to her seat before the bell rang, and so had no opportunity before school to inquire into the cause of Gracie's strange behavior.
There was no need of words, however, to show that Gracie was indeed offended with her, for averted looks and scornful tossings of the head showed that plainly enough. Poor Fanny was hurt and uncomfortable, and vainly tried to imagine what she could have done that offended Gracie so much.
She ran to her as soon as recess gave her liberty to speak.
"Why, Gracie! what is the matter?" she asked. "Why did you not stop for me this morning?"
"'Cause I did not choose to," answered Gracie shortly.
"Are you mad with me?" asked Fanny, putting a very unnecessary question, for it was quite plain to all beholders that this was Gracie's state of mind.
"Yes, I am; and I have a good right to be too," answered Gracie, her eyes flashing at Fanny.
"What have I done?" asked the innocent Fanny.
"You need not pretend you don't know, Miss Hateful," replied Gracie, "nor pretend you haven't a guilty conscience. I've found you out! I'll never be friends with you again."
"You ought to tell Fanny what it is, and let her make it up," said Belle.
"She can't make it up. I've found her out before it was too late. She is a false, treacherous friend," said Gracie, waxing magnificent and severe in her reproaches, as she imagined.
Poor Fanny, a tender-hearted, sensitive little thing, was overwhelmed by these upbraidings, which she was not conscious of deserving; but neither her entreaties nor those of the other children could draw more than this from Gracie, who turned away from them with an air of great offence, and holding her head very high with insulted dignity.
"Augh!" said Lily Norris, who generally took up the cudgels in defence of any one whom she considered oppressed or injured, and who generally contrived to be quite as cutting and severe in her remarks as the offender had been; "you had better take care, Gracie; some day that nose of yours won't come down again, it is growing so used to sticking itself up at people. If when you're grown up people call you 'stuck-up-nose Miss Howard,' you won't feel very complimented; but you can just remember it is the consequence of your being such a proudy when you was young."
Gracie made no reply, except by raising both nose and head higher still, which expressive motion Lily answered by saying, —
"Oh, don't I feel like giving you a good slap!" with which she walked away, fearing perhaps that she might be too strongly tempted to put her desire into execution.
Fanny was a good deal distressed, and the other children all felt much sympathy for her, for, as you will doubtless do, they thought Gracie's behavior not only unkind but also unjust.
For, although such scenes as this were becoming quite too frequent in consequence of Gracie's ever increasing vanity and conceit, she generally was ready enough to proclaim the cause of offence; but now she was not only "hateful," as Lily called it, but "mysterious" also, and would give Fanny no opportunity of explaining the supposed grievance.
Fanny went home both unhappy and vexed, – Gracie still carrying matters with a high hand and refusing even to walk on the same side of the street with her – and finding her cousin there, as was quite natural, she told her of the trouble with Gracie.
Had Fanny not been too much disturbed to pay much attention to Hattie's manner, she might have seen that she looked uncomfortable when she told her story, fidgeting and coloring and having so little to say that Fanny thought her wanting in sympathy. But it was not until the next day that she discovered that Hattie was really the cause of the difficulty with Gracie. By that time she had heard that she was to sail for Europe in a few days, and this made her more unwilling than ever to be on bad terms with her young friend.
Meeting Gracie in the street, the poor little grieved heart overflowed, and rushing up to her, Fanny exclaimed, "Oh, Gracie! don't be cross with me any more, for I'm going to Europe, and I expect I'll be drowned in the steamer, and then you'll be sorry you did not make up with me."
This affecting prospect somewhat mollified Gracie's vexation; but still she answered in a tone of strong resentment, —
"Well, then; and why did you say hateful things about me to Hattie?"
"I didn't," said Fanny, who had so little intention of making unkind remarks about Gracie that she had really forgotten her conversation with Hattie. "I didn't. I never said a thing about you."
"Hattie said you did," answered Gracie; "she says you told her I thought myself very wonderful, but I was not; and that 'most all the girls were better scholars than me."
"I didn't," said Fanny indignantly.
"And she says," continued Gracie, "that you said 'cause I thought myself good did not make me good, and that Nellie wrote better compositions than I did. And she says" – this was plainly the first and worst count in Gracie's eyes – "she says you said no one could help knowing I was conceited and stuck up."
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