that?" she demanded in righteous resentment.

"'Katherine,' a worldly-wise aunt of mine said to me once, 'you have two
grave faults. One is telling the truth. The other is telling lies. I have
never known you to fail in telling the one when it was a time to tell the
other.' Can't you see what a curse it is to mix times that way?"

As one too tired to resist the tide, not accepting, but going with it for
the minute because the tide was kindly and the force to withstand it
small, the girl, her arm upon the table, her head leaning wearily upon
her hand, sat there looking at Katie, that combination of the
non-accepting and the unresisting which weariness can breed.

Kate seemed in profound thought. "Of course, you would naturally be
suspicious of me," she broke in as if merely continuing the thinking
aloud; Katie's fashion of doing that often made commonplace things seem
very intimate--a statement to which considerable masculine testimony
could be affixed. "I don't blame you in the least. I'd be suspicious,
too, in your place. It's not unnatural that, not knowing me well, you
should think I had some designs about 'doing good,' or helping you, and
of course nothing makes self-respecting persons so furious as the thought
that some one may be trying to do them good. Now if I could only prove to
you, as could be proved, that I never did any good in my life, then
perhaps you'd have more belief in me, or less suspicion of me. I wonder
if you would do this? Could you bring yourself to stay just long enough
to see that I am not trying to do you good? Fancy how I should feel to
have you go away looking upon me as an officious philanthropist! Isn't it
only square to give me a chance to demonstrate the honor of my
worthlessness?"