"Hearsay," suggests Bella. "Logical deduction from first principles. Guessing."

"You just explained why there is no good hearsay. The last two are pretty much equivalent here and they're both worse than the method I actually picked. Nice try, though."

"What makes somebody worth talking to?"

"Interesting question," says Elizabeth-or-variants. "How would you answer it?"

"If it's more fun or useful to talk to them than to do whatever else I'd be doing," says Bella. "Or if I have to for some reason, I guess."

"Reasonable," she says. "Kind of like that, yeah."

"Am I worth talking to?"

"Observe me talking to you."

"You could still be forming an opinion."

"I could! But I clearly haven't decided that you're not worth talking to, because here I still am."

"You are still here," agrees Bella. "And I still haven't shooed you and started reading my book again."

"I feel so special," she says dryly.

"You should," giggles Bella.

She grins.

"When you find someone who's worth your time what do you usually do with them?"

"That depends entirely on the person," she says. "And factors such as, for example, what they like to do with their time."

"I mostly read. Or write notes about things," says Bella. "I'm not particularly interesting company, I think. It's pretty neat living in my head, but you aren't invited. So if we're going to do anything it might be useful to know what you like to do."

"That is why what you like to do with your time is only one factor," says she whom we shall call Elizabeth. "What's neat about living in your head?"

"I just think I'm interesting. I like to take my thoughts apart and find what littler thoughts they're made of."

"Nice hobby," says Elizabeth. "What does 'not invited' mean?"

"Well, you can't read my mind. And if you could, you shouldn't."

"But it doesn't mean you don't want to talk about it?"

"I don't want to talk about all of it. I might talk about some of it."

"Well, some of it like what?"

"I dunno, no one ever wanted to know that many details about it before. If it comes up in conversation I'll tell you."