She couldn't have smelt fire, for of course there wasn't any to smell." "Be quiet, Elizabeth .-- Remember, Katherine," her aunt went on, turning to her, "that if ever I hear of or see any behaviour of this kind again, I shall have you to sleep in my room, and put Anna in here with Elizabeth." Which was a threat so full of horror to both the girls that they subsided speechless.
"I think," whispered Betty, as soon as their aunt's footsteps had ceased to sound--"no, I don't think, I know that Anna is the _very meanest_ sneak I ever met." "I hope I shall never know a meaner," groaned Kitty; "but I--I won't be beaten by her.

I won't! I won't!" "And I'll beat her too," snapped Betty.
"I am ashamed that she is a relation," said Kitty in hot disgust.
"She isn't a real one," said Betty scornfully, "and for the future I shan't count her one at all.

We won't own such a mean thing in the family." "I wonder why she is so horrid," sighed Kitty, who was more distressed by these things than was Betty.

"We never did her any harm.
Perhaps she can't help it.

It must be awful to be mean, and a sneak, and to feel you can't help it." "Why doesn't Aunt Pike teach her better?
She is always telling us what to do, and that it is good for us to try and be different, and--and all that sort of thing." "But Aunt Pike wouldn't believe that Anna is mean; she thinks she is perfection," said Kitty.
"Oh, well, I s'pose a jewel's a duck in a toad's eye," misquoted Betty complacently; "at least, that is what Fanny said, and I think she is right.