"THE SPIDER AND THE FLY."

IF Mrs. Howard had perhaps hoped that little May's pleading would have any softening effect on Gracie, she was mistaken. The message she had expected to receive on reaching home did not come to her. Nor did she hear a word from Gracie through the evening until the little girl's bed-time came. Then she sent word that the hour had come, still hoping and believing that the stubborn heart must relent, and that Gracie would feel that she could not go to rest unforgiven and without her mother's good-night kiss. But she was mistaken. Gracie received the message in sullen silence, but obeyed and went to bed without one word of sorrow or repentance.

It was the same in the morning. Gracie rose and was dressed; her breakfast was brought and eaten in solitude, as her dinner and supper had been yesterday; and still the nurse who waited upon her passed in and out, as it was necessary, and brought no word to comfort the sorrowing heart of her mother.

School-time came, and Gracie knew that the children in her class would believe that her absence was caused by her misconduct of the previous day, as was indeed too true; but this only made her feel more and more proud and obstinate.

The long, weary morning wore away, the solitary dinner was once more over, and again the house seemed so still and lonely, for mamma and the children had gone out again, and the servants were all downstairs.

By and by Gracie heard a light, quick foot running up the stairs and coming towards her own door. The latch was turned and the door softly opened,—Mrs. Howard had not locked her in, for she believed that she could trust Gracie and that she would not disobey so far as to leave the room she had been bidden to keep,—and Hattie's face peeped in.

Gracie started, partly in astonishment, partly in dismay; for what must she do now? Mamma would not have allowed her to see Hattie, she knew, if she had been at home; and must she send her away? She was so glad to see some one, to be able to speak to some one.

Hattie came in, closed the door behind her, and, running to Gracie, put her arm about her neck and kissed her, saying with much energy,—

"It's too mean, Gracie! it's the meanest thing I ever knew! It's a great shame!"

There could be no doubt of her sympathy, of her belief that Gracie was in the right, or at least that she was not so very much to blame, and was undeservedly punished. For Hattie was really and truly very fond of Gracie, admired her and considered her very clever; and, although even she had been dismayed by Gracie's outburst yesterday, she was now disposed to treat it lightly, and to say that Gracie had been provoked. There was another reason, too, which induced Hattie to take part against Nellie Ransom, and to wish to put her in the wrong.

"O Hattie!" said Gracie, "how did you come up here? Mamma wouldn't allow it, I know."

Hattie laughed triumphantly.

"I knew that," she said, "for I came to the door a little while ago and the servant said you were up in your room, but he thought you could not see any one to-day, and he said every one else was out. But I said I had a message from school for you, and that you must have it this afternoon. So of course he thought it was from Miss Ashton, as I meant he should, and he let me come up."

"Mamma will be displeased," said Gracie; "you ought not, Hattie. I'm very glad to see you, but I must not let you stay."

"I'll only stay a few minutes," said Hattie, taking the seat which Gracie had not ventured to offer her. "I've something perfectly splendid to tell you."

"Was everybody saying ugly things about me to-day, and talking as if I was as wicked as a murderer?" asked Gracie, more interested in the opinion others might hold of her than in Hattie's promised news.

There had really been very little said on the matter; the offence was too serious and too shocking to Gracie's young companions to make it an agreeable subject of conversation; and, although there had been some wondering as to whether Gracie would ever be allowed to return to the school, but few unkind remarks had been made, and these were more in sorrow than in censure.

And Hattie was too full of her errand and of the fear of being found on forbidden ground to make as good a story of that little as she might have chosen to do at another time.

"Well, no, not much," she answered. "I suppose that old Nellie, hateful thing, was glad enough."

"Did she say so?" questioned Gracie.

"No," said Hattie; "she did not speak about it. Gracie, did Miss Ashton send word to your mother and ask her to punish you?"

"She wrote to her about it, and I suppose mamma punished me of her own accord," answered Gracie.

"How long is she going to keep you up here?" asked Hattie.

"Till—till—I beg Miss Ashton's pardon," said Gracie, her angry pride rising again at the thought; "and I never will do it, no, never, not if I stay here a year!"

"But the fair," said Hattie; "you know the fair is in two weeks, and if you don't come out before that you'll miss all the fun."

Now, apart from the interest which all the little girls took in the fair, Gracie had a strong desire, as usual, to play some very prominent part therein. As we know, she had wished to be Queen, and had been vexed because Maggie Bradford had been chosen again; but, although she could not have this coveted honor, she still hoped and intended to make herself very conspicuous there.

It was true that the thought of the fair and all that concerned it had been much in her mind, even during her imprisonment; but it had not occurred to her that her resolution of never, never apologizing to Miss Ashton, "even if she stayed shut up for a whole year," would scarcely agree with her appearance at the festival.

She sat as if confounded at Hattie's words.

"I'd do it if I were you," continued the latter, seeing the effect she had produced. "It's a great shame that you have to, but then you will have to, you know; and I'd do it and have it over. If you're going to fret and fuss here about it, you'll feel a great deal worse at last when you come to do it."

Hattie's advice on this subject was certainly good in itself, though she did not put it before Gracie in a right light.

"Miss Ashton is so unjust and so awfully partial to Nellie," pouted Gracie, although her resolution was beginning to waver a little for the first time.

"I know it," said Hattie; "but she can't make other people think Nellie is the smartest child. Every one knows you are, Gracie, even if they won't say so."

"I can learn three lessons while Nellie learns one; but Miss Ashton is always praising her and never praises me," was Gracie's answer.

"I know it," said Hattie again. "Nellie—oh, I can't bear that girl!—sets up to be so wonderfully good, and Miss Ashton always believes whatever she says, and makes such a fuss about her; but you can just say you beg Miss Ashton's pardon, and have it over. The rest of the class will have every thing their own way if you don't come out pretty soon and have your word about the fair; and there's your mat, too, you know, Gracie."

"I forgot my mat yesterday when I came away," said Gracie. "I wish you had known it and then you could have brought it to me."

Again Hattie gave a triumphant little laugh, and putting her hand into her pocket drew out the mat,—that is, a mat.

Gracie seized it eagerly, gave Hattie a kiss, saying, "Oh, you dear thing! I'm so glad."

Then she looked for the stain, but there was no stain to be seen.

"Where's that ink-spot? Oh, Hattie, did you take it out? There's not a sign of it."

"No," said Hattie, "I did not take it out."

"Why!" exclaimed Gracie, turning the mat over. "Why, it is—it is—it's not mine. It's Nellie's mat!"

"I'm going to tell you," said Hattie. "This morning Miss Ashton handed me your history, which I believe you left in the cloak-room yesterday, and told me to put it in your desk. So when I opened the desk, the first thing I saw was the mat, and I knew you must have forgotten it. Nellie, the mean thing, she had brought her mat to school to-day again, and said she was going to work on it in recess; but when recess came the other children coaxed her to go out in the garden 'cause it was so pleasant, and she went. So while they were all down there, I saw the way to play Miss Nellie a good trick and to help you, dear; and I ran up to the school-room, changed Nellie's mat for yours, put hers back just as she had left it, and she'll never know the difference and think that somehow that ink-spot has come on her mat. And do you know, Gracie, it was the most fortunate thing that Nellie had just worked those two rows more that made her work even with yours; so she never can know. You remember yesterday we could scarcely tell them apart, and now they look almost exactly alike."

"But what then?" said Gracie, almost frightened at the thought of Hattie's probable meaning.

"Why, don't you see?" said Hattie, who told her story as if she thought she had done something very clever and praiseworthy; "you can just finish this mat as if it was your own, and need not bother yourself about the ink-stain."

"But—but—Hattie—this one is Nellie's," said Gracie in a shocked voice.

"What of that? we'll keep the secret, and no one will ever know but us two," said Hattie. "Nellie has the other one, and that's good enough for her. She has no right to expect the most money from your grandmamma. Take a great deal of pains with this, Gracie, and make the work look just like Nellie's."

"But, I can't, I can't," said Gracie. "It seems to me almost like—stealing."

"Stealing!" repeated Hattie. "I'd like to know who has been stealing! I only changed the mats, and you have the best right to the nicest one. I was not going to have Nellie get every thing away from you. She just thinks she's going to make herself the head of the school and beat you in every thing."

Now as I have said, and as you will readily believe, there was more at the bottom of Hattie's desire to thwart Nellie than her wish to see Gracie stand first, although she was really very fond of the latter, and it was this.

It had so happened that Nellie's rather blunt truthfulness and clear-sighted honesty had more than once detected Hattie's want of straightforwardness, and even defeated some object she had in view, and for this Hattie bore her a grudge. She was particularly displeased with her at the present time because of a reprimand from Miss Ashton which she chose to consider she owed to Nellie.

Coming to school rather early one morning, a day or two since, Nellie found Belle Powers and Hattie there before her.

Belle sat upon the lower step of the upper flight of stairs, in a state of utter woe, with the saddest of little faces, and wiping the tears from her eyes. Hattie, grasping the banister with one hand, was swinging herself back and forth, saying, "I wouldn't care if I were you. 'Tis nothing to cry about;" but she looked ashamed and rather caught when she saw Nellie coming up the stairs.

"What is the matter, Belle?" asked Nellie, sitting down beside the school pet and darling, and putting her arm around her neck.

"Fanny Leroy said things about me," sobbed Belle.

"What things?" questioned Nellie with a searching look at Hattie.

"She said I was so bad and spoiled I could hardly ever be good, even when I wanted to," answered Belle piteously; "and she said Miss Ashton had to be excusing me all the time for the naughty things I did in school. And I loved Fanny, and I wouldn't have said such bad things about her; and, oh, dear! I thought she loved me too. She came to Aunt Margaret's when I was there the day before she went away, to say good-bye to Maggie and Bessie and me; and she gave us each a nutmeg to remember her by and to keep for ever an' ever an' ever for a keepsake, and she kissed me ever so many times. And all the time she had been saying bad things about me, and so I'm going to throw away the nutmeg, 'cause I don't want a keepsake of a girl who made b'lieve she liked me when she didn't."

"I don't believe it," said Nellie with far more energy than was usual with her, and still regarding Hattie with searching looks.

"But Hattie says she did," repeated Belle.

Hattie's saying a thing made it by no means sure in Nellie's eyes, and although she was not apt to interfere or meddle where she had no right to do so, she would not let this pass without further questioning. She was fond of the absent Fanny and loved Belle dearly; and believing that both were now wronged, she set herself to right them if possible.

"I don't believe it," she said again.

"Well, you just can believe it," said Hattie resentfully. "Don't I know what Fanny said to me? It's nothing to make such a fuss about, anyhow."

"Belle has very easily hurt feelings," said Nellie; "and besides, it is something to make a fuss about. And Fanny hardly ever would say unkind things of other people; the girls used to think she was 'most too particular about it. And, Hattie Leroy, I don't believe she ever said such things about Belle; anyhow, not in that way."

"She did, too, I tell you," persisted Hattie, secure in Fanny's absence, and determined not to acknowledge that she had misrepresented her innocent words, from the mere love of talking and exaggeration, too; for she had not intended to hurt Belle so much, and was now really sorry to see her so grieved. "She did, too, I tell you. How do you know what Fanny said to me?"

"I don't know what she did say, but I am sure she never said that," repeated Nellie.

Both little girls had raised their voices as they contradicted one another, and as the tones of neither were very amicable by this time, they drew the attention of Miss Ashton.

"What is this, my little girls; what is the trouble?" she asked, coming up the stairs to them; then, seeing Belle's still distressed and tear-stained face she inquired, "Belle, darling, what is wrong?"

Nellie and Hattie were both rather abashed, especially the latter, who knew herself to be in the wrong; but Belle answered, "Hattie thinks Fanny Leroy said something, and Nellie thinks she didn't. I don't know," she added with a mournful shake of her head, "but somehow somebody must be rather 'deceitful and despicably wicked.'" Desperately, Belle meant, and she quoted her words in no spirit of irreverence, but because she thought them suited to the, to her, solemnity of the occasion.

Miss Ashton, too, feared that there was some deceitfulness, or at least exaggeration; and seeing that little Belle was in real trouble she questioned further, and Nellie told her what Hattie had said.

This was not the first time, by any means, that Miss Ashton had known mischief to arise from Hattie's thoughtless way, to call it by no worse name, of repeating things; and she reproved her pretty sharply, telling her that such speeches were not at all like her gentle, amiable cousin Fanny, and she could not believe her guilty of them; and even had she said them she, Hattie, had no right to repeat them and make needless sorrow and trouble for Belle. Then she soothed Belle and encouraged her to think that Fanny had not so wronged her; and after school she kept Hattie for a few moments, and spoke to her very seriously but kindly on her idle, foolish habit of telling tales with exaggeration and untruthfulness.

But Hattie, in repeating this, had said that "Miss Ashton kept her in and gave her an awful scolding just because she had said something that cry-baby Belle did not like, and Nellie went and told her and so put her in a scrape;" nor did she see that it had been her own blame in the first instance. And ever since she had been vexed with Nellie, and this added strength to her wish to have Gracie outstrip Nellie. It was not altogether this, let us do her justice, for she really loved Gracie better than any other child in the school, and was anxious to have her win for her own sake.

But we must go back to these two little girls as they sat together in Gracie's room.

"Yes, so she does," echoed Gracie; "and I suppose now Miss Ashton will take away my conduct marks, and being away to-day, I'll lose my place in all the classes too. Not that I could not get ahead of her again easily enough," she added contemptuously.

"But she can't have the best mat now," said Hattie.

"I don't see how I could do that," said Gracie. "It is her's, you know, Hattie, and I can't, really I can't."

"But you'll have to now," said Hattie. "You know Nellie has found the ink-spot on the other mat by this time, and there's no way to give her this one back."

Yes, there was one way, but that did not enter Hattie's thoughts.

"I couldn't," said Gracie again, shrinking at the idea of doing what she knew to be so dishonest and deceitful. "I must have my own mat, Hattie; but I do wish this was mine and the other Nellie's."

"But we can't put it back now, and I took it for you," said Hattie complainingly. "Gracie, you must keep it now. I shall get into an awful scrape if you don't; and it's real mean of you."

It would take too long to tell you of all the arguments and persuasions Hattie used. How she pleaded and reproached; how she insisted that there was no way of undoing what she had done; how she excited and increased Gracie's jealous pride and desire to outdo Nellie; and this last she found by far the most effectual argument.

And—Gracie yielded. Persuading herself that she had the best right to receive the highest premium because her own grandmamma had offered it; putting from her the thought of the only way in which justice could now be done to Nellie, on the plea that Hattie would be disgraced, and she would be "too mean" to bring this upon her; rousing up all her own naughty and envious feelings against innocent Nellie, she gave way at last and fell before temptation. Fell into the very sin, or even worse, from which she felt herself so very secure,—deceit and theft, for it was no less.

"Now I'll go, dear," said Hattie, jumping up as soon as Gracie had yielded, perhaps afraid that she might repent and insist that she could not keep the mat, "and no one but us two will ever know the secret. And, Gracie, make up your mind to ask Miss Ashton's pardon, so you won't lose all the fun."

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