"Maybe Miss Kate wanted the best girl prize, and knew she would not have any chance if she teased so much," said Belle.
"Much chance I'd have of 'the best girl prize,' as you call it," said Kate. "No, Belle; I never set myself up for that."
"But you ought, oughtn't you?" said Belle, with solemn gravity.
"Ought what?" asked Kate. "To be the best girl in the school?"
"No," answered the child; "but to try to be."
"And take the prize from your Bessie!" said Kate, pretending to be shocked at the idea.
"No," said Belle, who sometimes presumed on being a privileged character, and said things to the older girls which none of the other little ones would have dared to say. "No, Miss Kate, I don't think there's goodness enough in you for that. But you might try to be the best that you could."
"What would be the good when there was no chance of the prize?" asked Kate, much amused.
"To please Jesus," said Belle. "Bessie's mamma told us about that that time I lived there while papa was away. She said we must only try to do the thing that was right, 'cause it was right, no matter what people thought of us; not to try to be or to do the best so as to be rewarded."
"Well done, little Belle," said Fanny Berry; "how nicely you have remembered and repeated your lesson!"