instance, and then repeating
it to me. I want you to understand--and especially you, Marjory, who
have begun so-called lessons rather later in life than most girls--that
it is not the amount of information you possess and the studies you have
gone through that is the important thing; it is the way you have worked,
the sort of girl that you are, the life you are living, that matters. We
are beginning again to-day. Let us all do our very best, so that at the
end of the term we may have really gone forward. The lessons I have been
talking about are never finished; our education goes on as long as we
are alive. Now," with a bright smile, "my speech is done, and I hope it
hasn't been too long. It is your turn now. Have either of you any
problems for me?"

"I have," replied Marjory. "I want to know whether it is ever right to
tell a lie, or a kind of a one, for the sake of somebody else." And she
blushed very red.

Miss Waspe looked at her in surprise. Marjory had always seemed to her
to be so absolutely straightforward and honest that she could not
understand the reason for such a question.

"I don't believe in a 'kind of a lie,'" she replied, "A thing is either
true or untrue, and I don't think it could ever be right to tell an
untruth under any circumstances."

"Not if you can see quite well that if you tell this lie it will prevent
something bad happening to some one else?" asked Marjory appealingly.

"No," was the decided reply. "Tell the truth at all costs, and trust the
results to a higher power than yours. Wrong cannot make right."

Tears stood in Marjory's eyes, but she said no more, and Miss Waspe did
not question her. The truth was that ever since Marjory had told the man
in the plantation that "people" of the name of Shaw kept the Low Farm,
allowing him to think that the husband was at home, she had felt
uncomfortable about it. Certainly she had said it for Mrs. Shaw's sake,
to prevent a suspicious-looking person from going to the farm when its
mistress was alone; but she had not been able to silence her conscience,
and had at last determined to ask Miss Waspe what she thought. Her words
had only confirmed Marjory's uneasy feelings, and she could not give the
circumstances as an excuse without breaking her promise to the man.

"I've got a problem too," said Blanche, "and it's this: Is a secret a
proper secret if you tell only one person, and you are certain that
other person will never tell?"

The others