Page:Advice to young ladies on their duties and conduct in life - Arthur - 1849.djvu/92

84 disparaging remarks in reference to her companions. Like most others who indulged in this reprehensible practice, she did not always confine herself strictly to the truth. Not that she designedly, and with evil intent, uttered falsehoods. She only embellished a little too highly, without seeing that, in doing this, she was magnifying foibles into faults, and perverting language from the true meaning it was intended to convey.

“Your friend, Emily R, seems to be a very fine girl,” said a lady to her one day, after having spent her first half hour with the person referred to.

“Yes,” replied Ellen; “she is certainly a fine girl, but, like all the rest of us, she has her faults.”

“Not very serious ones, I hope,” said the lady.

“Why, that will depend pretty much upon how you view them. She has one fault that I call a pretty serious one.”

“What is that?”

“A disposition to tattle.”

“Indeed! That is bad.”

“Not so bad as some other faults, but still bad enough. Whenever I am with her, I consider it necessary to be guarded in what I say; for, in