Now, as you probably know, when people go to Europe some of the hotels paste labels on your suit-cases and trunks when they take your baggage to the station. Some people come home with their baggage quite covered over with these slips of paper, and one can easily see by these labels what a long distance the owners of the luggage have traveled.
These girls who bought those labels in New York, but had never been to Europe, were trying to make people believe that they, too, had traveled in foreign countries.
Of course you know what that sort of deception means: it is telling a lie without speaking it.
So you see these lies went with the suit-cases. And wherever those girls carried their bags, the lies walked along with them, and said to everyone who looked at them, "Our owners have been to Europe."
Of course, no self-respecting boy or girl would do such a thing. But you must also be careful not to act falsehoods by pretending things in school, or acting at home as if you don't know about things when you do. Don't try to fool yourselves, then you will not try to fool other people.
WELLINGTON AND THE SOLDIER
No boy likes to be called a coward, and some boys do things that are dangerous for fear that their friends will think they have no courage. Sometimes it is more cowardly to do a dangerous thing like that than not to do it.
Do not think that you are a coward because you are afraid of dangerous things. Some of the bravest men the world ever saw have been afraid, but in spite of their fear they went firmly on.
A story is told of Lord Wellington, a great English general, who saw a young man in his army who was white with fear just before a battle, and yet did not run away. Lord Wellington said: "There is a brave man. He knows the danger, and yet he faces it." Another story is told of a soldier who was making fun of a second who was badly frightened just before battle. The frightened soldier said to the other one: "Yes, I am afraid. And if you were half as much afraid as I am, you would run away."