"Well, at any rate, aunt, I should think, if the Lord didn't wish us to wear roses and jessamines, he would not have made them. And it is the most natural thing in the world to want to wear flowers."

"It only feeds vanity and a love of display, my dear."

"I don't think it's vanity, or a love of display. I should want to dress prettily, if I were the only person in the world. I love pretty things because they are pretty. I like to wear them because they make me look pretty."

"There it is, child; you want to dress up your poor perishing body to look pretty—that's the thing!"

"To be sure I do. Why shouldn't I? I mean to look as pretty as I can, as long as I live."

"You seem to have quite a conceit of your beauty!" said Aunt Nesbit.

"Well, I know I am pretty. I'm not going to pretend I don't. I like my own looks, now, that's a fact. I'm not like one of your Greek statues, I know. I'm not wonderfully handsome, nor likely to set the world on fire with my beauty. I'm just a pretty little thing; and I like flowers and laces, and all of those things; and I mean to like them, and I don't think there'll be a bit of religion in my not liking them; and as for all that disagreeable stuff about the worms, that you are always telling me, I don't think it does me a particle of good. And, if religion is going to make me so poky, I shall put it off as long I can."

"I used to feel just as you do, dear, but I've seen the folly of it!"

"If I've got to lose my love for everything that is bright, everything that is lively, and everything that is pretty, and like to read such horrid stupid books, why, I'd rather be buried, and done with it!"

"That's the opposition of the natural heart, my dear."

The conversation was here interrupted by the entrance of a bright, curly headed mulatto boy, bearing Mrs. Nesbit's daily luncheon.

"Oh, here comes Tomtit," said Nina; "now for a scene. Let's see what he has forgotten, now."

Tomtit was, in his way, a great character in the mansion. He and his grandmother were the property of Mrs. Nesbit. His true name was no less respectable and methodical than that of Thomas; but, as he was one of those restless and effervescent sprites, who seem to be born for the confusion of quiet people, Nina had rechristened him Tomtit, which sobriquet was immediately recognized by the whole household as being eminently descriptive and appropriate. A constant ripple and eddy of drollery seemed to pervade his whole being; his large, saucy black eyes had always a laughing fire in them, that it was impossible to meet without a smile in return. Slave and property though he was, yet the first sentiment of reverence for any created thing seemed yet wholly unawakened in his curly pate. Breezy, idle, careless, flighty, as his woodland namesake, life to him seemed only a repressed and pent-up ebullition of animal enjoyment; and almost the only excitement of Mrs. Nesbit's quiet life was her chronic controversy with Tomtit. Forty or fifty times a day did the old body assure him "that she was astonished at his conduct;" and as many times would he reply by showing the whole set of his handsome teeth, on the broad grin, wholly inconsiderate of the state of despair into which he thus reduced her.