However, her grandmother, who seemed, oddly enough, to have some faint glimmering of justice, appreciated Val's superiority in some things. If she lost her spectacles, she would say to Emmie, hunting about with big blind eyes: "You are good only at losing things, my dear. Call Val." Or if a parcel was to be tied up, or something carefully lifted down from a height, she would trust Val rather than anybody in the house. This recognition of deft-handedness, small claim on consideration as it might seem, was still a balm to the child. She was wicked, she was hideous, she was unloved, but she never broke things as did the adored Emmie. No, Val was at least clever and quick in her movements; it might not be much out of the wreck of a heroine, but it was something. One other quality was admitted as time went on. If something questionable happened in the house, something that had to be inquired into, it came in time to be Val's privilege to be called in to give a faithful and veracious account of it. Emmie was no keen observer, and she was prone to spare other people's feelings if her own were not too much engaged. Besides, Emmie had a high character to sustain; Val, having none, could brace herself and tell the horrid truth, even about herself. One proud day there was a great difference of opinion as to the exact circumstances attending the breaking of one of the coffee-mugs of great-grandfather Calvert's wonderful and priceless service of thin white china with the broad gold key. It lived in the mahogany buffet, and was washed once a year--_used_, never! Val was called in before the assembled household to give her version, the summons being solemnly prefaced by "I've never known you to tell me a lie." That was what made it so proud a moment, in spite of the uneasy sense that the tribute was not deserved. When Miss Brown had required the girls in her class to go over the arithmetic lesson four times, no matter if they were sure they had got the sums right at first, Val had instructed the entire Preparatory Department to lay their books down on the ground and hop across them. This might next morning be reported as "going over" the sums as many times as Miss Brown liked. "You are superficial," Professor Dawson said, detaining Val one day after the Latin lesson; "your oral translations are too often mere happy guesses instead of accurate knowledge. You must spend three-quarters of an hour at least on your Latin alone." After the first fifteen minutes' application in the evening at home, Val would place her grammar and her little square red-edged Cæsar on the chair, and, sitting uneasily on them for the remainder of the prescribed time, she would look at the pictures in Don Quixote, and read bits here and there. But she might not have reported this as having "spent a whole hour on Cæsar," had she known that she was building up a reputation with her grandmother for incorruptible truth. The commendation quickened conscience.