ABOUT TELLING THE TRUTH.
All noble boys and girls tell the truth as a matter of course. In fact, the greatest possible insult that can be offered a person is to doubt his word. No matter what consequences are involved, it is always your duty to tell plainly and clearly just what has really happened so far as you are concerned.
I once knew a little fellow of quite timid and sensitive nature who had the misfortune to break a window while playing ball in the school yard. The teacher was thought to be very stern, and Charlie was very much frightened, but he went straight in-doors, and up to the desk, and told what he had done. A day or two later somebody said, "Who broke that window, Mr. ——?" "An honorable person, sir," was the reply, loud enough for everybody to hear.
When truth-telling concerns not yourself only, but others, it is sometimes right for you to refrain from speaking, simply declining to answer rather than to tell tales. You must judge about this when circumstances arise, but of one thing you may be sure, that it is never right to evade, or alter, or color a statement. Be true, whatever happens. An old pagan Emperor used to say, "No matter what other folks do, I must be good, just as if the emerald should say, I must always be emerald, and keep my color." Do not hesitate when questioned, but look the one who questions you straight in the face, and say what it is right to say, modestly and frankly.
Candor does not require you, on the other hand, to go about saying disagreeable things because they are true. A little girl I used to know once made a visit in a house where were twin sisters, one of whom was much prettier than the other. What should little miss do but remark, "I think Eunice is far more beautiful than Elsie, and I've heard Aunt Clara say she thinks so too." This was true, but it was a true thing which was never meant to be talked of. And the little girl felt very much ashamed of herself when she grew older and recollected it.
ALL FAIR, AND NO CHEATING.
Lewis had brought home dreadful reports for four or five weeks, and especially in spelling he had long lists of failures. How he did wish that the teachers in his school would believe in the spelling reform of which his sister's professor talked! So far as Lewis understood it, it appeared to him that the professor agreed with the school-boys that a word should be spelled the way it sounded. But the teachers at his academy only grew stricter every day, and his demerits kept accumulating like a snow-ball that becomes bigger and bigger as it rolls along.
"Frightful!" mamma would exclaim, shuddering, as she gazed at Lewis's reports.
"Disgraceful!" was papa's opinion. "No more pocket-money, sir, till I see some improvement."
"Abominably stupid!" said Uncle James.