There's not even been Colin to tease me for a long time!"

Rosy's way of talking of herself puzzled Bee, though she couldn't
quite explain it. It was right, she knew, for Rosy not to feel too
sure of herself, but still she went too far that way. She almost
talked as if she had nothing to do with her own faults, that they must
come or not come like rainy days.

"What are you thinking, Bee?" she said, as Bee did not answer at once.

"I can't tell you quite how I mean, for I don't know it myself," said
Bee. "Only I think you are a little wrong. You should try to say, 'If
things come to vex me, I'll _try_ not to be vexed.'"

Rosy shook her head.

"No," she said, "I can't say that, for I don't think I should
_want_ to try," and Beata felt she could not say any more, only
she very much hoped that things to vex Rosy would _not_ come!

The first thing at all out of the common that did come was, or was
going to be, perhaps I should say, a very nice thing. A note came one
day to Rosy's mother to say that a lady, a friend of hers living a few
miles off, wanted to see her, to talk over a plan she had in her head
for a birthday treat to her two little daughters. These two children
were twins; they were a little younger than Rosy, and she did not know
them _very_ well, as they lived some way off; but Mrs. Vincent
had often wished they could meet oftener, as they were very nice and
good children.