click here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\nI.<\/h6>\n
\u201cBut Miss Proctor would never do anything so wicked!\u201d said Betty.<\/p>\n
Betty and Bob were sitting under the row of lilac bushes which we call \u201cthe shrubbery,\u201d waiting for an unseasonable July rain to let up. Bob, who was finding the burden of high scandal rather difficult to support alone, had taken Betty into his confidence.<\/p>\n
That is to say, he had told her when, and how, he discovered the whereabouts of his missing compass.<\/p>\n
And Betty, who never like to think the worst of anybody, had raised this objection to the evidence of her brother\u2019s senses: Miss Proctor was too nice to be a thief.<\/p>\n
II.<\/h6>\n
\u201cTemptation befalls the rich and poor alike,\u201d replied Bob gloomily.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t believe Miss Proctor is rich. She\u2019s only got one umbrella.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen she\u2019s poor. And it all comes to the same thing. Anybody<\/em> may do anything<\/em>, if they\u2019re tempted bad enough.\u201d<\/p>\nDespite a vast respect for her elder brother\u2019s opinion, Betty did not quite share his conviction regarding a middle-aged spinster\u2019s temptation to acquire a slightly-dented brass compass out of a visitor\u2019s pocket. However, it was impossible to gainsay the evidence against her.<\/p>\n
The compass was in Miss Proctor\u2019s drawer.<\/p>\n
If that fact was not incriminating, Bob did not know what was.<\/p>\n
Betty, very regretfully, was obliged to own that she did not know what was, either.<\/p>\n