"CHARITY THINKETH NO EVIL."
"I HAVE just been to see Betty Allis," said Emily Dunbar to her cousin Martha. "She is a great deal better, but she is not able to go to school."
"Then she has really been sick!" said Martha.
Emily looked at her in surprise.
"What do you mean, Martha? Of course she has been sick. She would not be very likely to stay out of school just now, unless she was obliged to do so."
"I don't know that!" returned Martha.
"If a girl has been working for a prize, and finds out that she is not likely to get it after all, it may be very convenient to stay out of school a week or two, and then say, at last: 'Oh, of course, I had no chance. I lost so much time by being sick.'"
"Martha, you have no business to say such things," said Emily. "Betty is not that sort of girl at ell."
"I think she is exactly that sort of girl!" interrupted Martha.
"And besides," continued Emily, smiling, "I think it as likely as not that Betty will gain the prize, after all. She was ever so far before the rest of us, and she has only been out of school a week, you know."