"You're a silly infant," threw in Cupid, coughing as she spoke. "Truth has got to be--and honesty, too. If it didn't exist, there couldn't be any state, or laws, or any social life. It's one of the things that makes men different from animals, and the people who boss us know pretty well what they're about, you bet when they punish the ruffians who don't practise it." "Yes, now THAT I see," agreed Laura eagerly. "Then truth's a useful thing.--Oh, and that's probably what it means, too, when you say: Honesty is the best Policy." "I never heard such a child," said M. P., shocked. "Cupid, you really shouldn't put such things into her head.--You're down-right immoral, Laura." "Oh, how CAN you say such a horrid thing?" "Well, your ideas are simply dreadful. You ought to try your hardest to improve them." "I do, M. P., really I do." "You don't succeed. I think there must be a screw loose in you somewhere." "Anyhow, I vote we adjourn this meeting," said Cupid, recovering from a fresh cough and splutter. "Or old Gurley'll be coming in to put me on a mustard plaster.--As for you, Infant, if you take the advice of a chap who has seen life, you'll keep your ideas to yourself: they're too crude for this elegant world." "Right you are!" said Laura cheerfully. She was waiting by the gas-jet till M.P. had folded her last garment, and she shuffled her bare feet one over the other as she stood; for it was a cold night. The light out, she hopped into bed in the dark. XXI. But the true seal was set on her regeneration when she was invited to join the boarders' Literary Society; of which Cupid and Mary were the leading spirits. This carried her back, at one stroke, into the swing of school life. For everybody who was anybody belonged to the society. And, despite her friendship with the head of her class, Laura still knew what it was to get the cold shoulder.