Now in spite of her outspokenness Nora was really a very fair minded young person, or perhaps I ought to say because of it. Those who express themselves very plainly often hurt the feelings of their friends, and not all of them have the courage to admit that they have been wrong. It does require some courage to go to a girl who is in the habit of justifying all her own words and deeds to tell her that you yourself have been wrong. Yet this was just what Nora did a day or two later when she began to reflect on the criticisms she had made in the matter of Belle's clothes. She was surprised herself at the graciousness with which Belle received her apology. But this was one of the cases--rather exceptional to be sure,--in which Nora was decidedly in the wrong. Belle, therefore, could afford to be magnanimous. After this Nora was much more careful about criticising any one, for it was her general aim in life to follow as closely as she could the Golden Rule.