hat she was like with such a quantity of it inside her!

At first it did not show itself outside in any very active form; but
the wise woman had been to the cottage, and had seen her sitting alone,
with such a smile of self-satisfaction upon her face as would have been
quite startling to her, if she had ever been startled at any thing; for
through that smile she could see lying at the root of it the worm that
made it. For some smiles are like the ruddiness of certain apples,
which is owing to a centipede, or other creeping thing, coiled up at
the heart of them. Only her worm had a face and shape the very image of
her own; and she looked so simpering, and mawkish, and self-conscious,
and silly, that she made the wise woman feel rather sick.

Not that the child was a fool. Had she been, the wise woman would have
only pitied and loved her, instead of feeling sick when she looked at
her. She had very fair abilities, and were she once but made humble,
would be capable not only of doing a good deal in time, but of
beginning at once to grow to no end. But, if she were not made humble,
her growing would be to a mass of distorted shapes all huddled
together; so that, although the body she now showed might grow up
straight and well-shaped and comely to behold, the new body that was
growing inside of it, and would come out of it when she died, would be
ugly, and crooked this way and that, like an aged hawthorn that has
lived hundreds of years exposed upon all sides to salt sea-winds.

As time went on, this disease of self-conceit went on too, gradually
devouring the good that was in her. For there is no fault that does not
bring its brothers and sisters and cousins to live with it. By degrees,
from thinking herself so clever, she came to fancy that whatever seemed
to her, must of course be the correct judgment, and whatever she
wished, the right thing; and grew so obstinate, that at length her
parents feared to thwart her in any thing, knowing well that she would
never give in. But there are victories far worse than defeats; and to
overcome an angel too gentle to put out all his strength, and ride away
in triumph on the back of a devil, is one of the poorest.

So long as she was left to take her own way and do as she would, she
gave her parents little trouble. She would play about by herself in the
little garden with its few hardy flowers, or amongst the heather where
the bees were busy; or she would wander away amongst the hill