morning and go through all the same bother of dressing, and I--I hate it
so."

"P'r'aps you won't have to," said Betty cheerfully; "p'r'aps you'll be
a bed-lier like Jane Trebilcock, and you won't have to have boots, or
dresses, or hats."

But the prospect did not cheer Kitty very greatly. "I didn't say I
didn't want dresses and things. I do. I want lots of them, but I don't
want the bother of putting them on."

"Well, they wouldn't be much good if you didn't put them on," retorted
practical Betty. "I hate getting up too"--Betty never failed in her
experience of any form of suffering or unpleasantness--"but I try to
make it a little different every day, to help me on. Sometimes I
pretend the bath is the sea, and I am bathing; other times I only paddle
my feet, and sometimes I don't bath at all--that's when I am playing
that I am a gipsy or a tramp--"

"Betty, you nasty, horrid, dirty little thing!" cried Kitty, looking
shocked.

But Betty was quite unabashed. "I've known you not wash either," she
remarked calmly.

Kitty coloured. "But--but that was only once when I forgot; that is
quite different."

"But I don't see that it is," said Betty firmly. You are not cleaner
because you forget to wash than if you don't wash on purpose. Hark!