Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/113

Rh were still divided between discussing the places where any sort of thing would look best if any sort of thing should ever come, and acknowledging that mutability in the little girl's career which was naturally unfavorable to accumulation. She stayed long enough only to miss things—not half long enough to deserve them. The way Sir Claude looked about the schoolroom had made her feel with humility as if it were not very different from the shabby attic in which she had visited Susan Ash. Then he had said in abrupt reference to Mrs. Beale: "Do you think she really cares for you?"

"Oh, awfully!" Maisie had replied.

"But I mean does she love you for yourself, as they call it, don't you know? Is she as fond of you, now, as Mrs. Wix?"

The child turned it over. "Oh, I 'm not every bit Mrs. Beale has!"

Sir Claude seemed much amused at this. "No, you 're not every bit she has!"

He laughed for some moments; but that was an old story to Maisie, and she was not too much disconcerted to go on: "But she 'll never give me up."

"Well, I won't either, old boy; so that 's not so wonderful, and she 's not the only one!