"And Tilly had," responded Dora, in a mortified tone.

"Oh, Tilly! Tilly's a trump, always and every time. She's on the right
side of things naturally."

If Dora and Amy needed a still lower abyss of humiliation, they found it
in this last sentence of Tom's, which showed them plainly what poor
creatures he thought they were "naturally" to Tilly.

Before many hours the story of "that little Smith girl" was known
throughout the house, and mothers and fathers and guardians heard with
amazement that so serious a little drama had been going on without their
slightest knowledge until this climax. One mother, however, Mrs. Robson,
was more than amazed when she found what an influence Agnes had exerted
over her daughter and niece.

"Don't offer as excuse that you didn't dare to tell me how things were
going on for fear of offending Agnes Brendon," she said indignantly.
"Didn't Tilly Morris dare to tell her grandmother?"

Everywhere it was Tilly Morris,--Tilly Morris, the kind, the brave, the
honest! Even Mrs. Brendon, who came at last to know the fact, in her
alarm and irritation assailed her daughter one day in the presence of
the Robsons with these words,--

"Why couldn't you have behaved amiably and sensibly, like the little
Morris girl? I don't see where you learned such suspicious, calculating,
worldly ways of judging people and things?"

And then it was that Agnes turned upon her mother and gave utterance to