off.

"Any one can see that," continued Elma Lewis; "but I don't think she is
quite so bad as you paint her, Alice."

Alice's private opinion of Elma was that she was a little toad, and she
now managed to extricate herself from the smaller girl's clasp.

"I shall never like her," she said. "There is no good in your praising
her to me. If you mean to be her friend you must do so from a double
motive."

"How uncharitable of you!" cried Elma, coloring crimson as she spoke.

"Oh, I can guess it very well, my dear," pursued Alice. "But for you she
would not be a member of the Tug-of-war. What would have been a
delightful society, a pleasure to the best girls at Middleton School,
will be nothing whatever but a ridiculous farce, a scene of high comedy,
something contemptible, now that Kitty Malone has joined it. But for you
she would never have been asked to join. Why did you do it, Elma?"

"For no reason in particular," answered Elma.

"That is certainly not true, and you know it."

"I cannot think why you speak to me in that tone," said Elma. "What have
I done to you that you should think so badly of me?"

"Oh, I don't think badly of you, Elma, not specially; but I have always
seen that whatever you did, you did with a reason. In your own way you