BE TRUE. 43

Wingate was horrid; gloomy as a
tomb: everything about it was un-
endurable, and for six months the
sound of the hammer echoed from
earret to cellar. The old house put
on different airs; but, like other fine-
ly dressed old people, it had a way of
looking (I don’t know how) some-
how as though it were not new, but
only an old house “ fixed up.” Re-
pairs at length came to an end, and
Mrs. Wingate had other improve-
ments to suggest.

Laura, the straightforward, truth-
telling Laura—how she interfered
with the fashionable deceit which
her mother and step-sisters well un-
derstood, and were not slow to prac-
tice! Poor Laura, she was only keep-
ing the golden rule. “If” thought
she, “I had so bad a memory as