"It seems quite natural to be with
you and Fixie again."
"I'm very glad of that," said Mrs. Vincent. "And was it not then the
strange feeling that made you so unhappy this afternoon for a little?"
Beata hesitated.
"Tell me, dear," said Mrs. Vincent. "You know if I am to be a 'make-up
mother' for a while, you must talk to me as much as you _can_, as
if I were your own mother."
She listened rather anxiously for Bee's answer, for two or three
little things--among them something Colin had said of the bad temper
Rosy had been in at tea-time--had made her afraid there had been some
reason she did not understand for Beata's tears. Bee lay still for a
minute or two. Then she said gently and rather shyly,
"I am so sorry, but I don't know what's right to do. Isn't it
sometimes difficult to know?"
"Yes, sometimes it is." Then Mrs. Vincent, in her turn, was silent for
a minute, and at last she said,
"Would you very much rather I did not ask you why you cried?"
"Oh yes," cried Bee, "much, much rather."
"Very well then, but you will promise me that if the same thing makes
you cry again, you _will_ tell me?"
"_Should_ I?" said Bee. "I thought--I thought it wasn't right to
tell tales," she added so innocently that Mrs. Vincent could not help
smiling to herself.
"It is not right," she said. "But what I ask you to promise is not to
tell tales.
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