Heaven
forbid that I should be thought to advocate falsehood in children;
but an untruth is more pardonable in them than in their parents.
Lady Lufton's tarradiddle was of a nature that is usually considered
excusable--at least with grown people; but, nevertheless, she would
have been nearer to perfection could she have confined herself to
the truth. Let us suppose that a boy were to write home from school,
saying that another boy had promised to come and stay with him, that
other having given no such promise--what a very naughty boy would
that first boy be in the eyes of his pastors and masters!
That little conversation between Lord Lufton and his mother--in which
nothing was said about his lordship's parliamentary duties--took
place on the evening before he started for London. On that occasion
he certainly was not in his best humour, nor did he behave to his
mother in his kindest manner. He had then left the room when she
began to talk about Miss Grantly; and once again in the course of the
evening, when his mother, not very judiciously, said a word or two
about Griselda's beauty, he had remarked that she was no conjurer,
and would hardly set the Thames on fire. "If she were a conjurer,"
said Lady Lufton, rather piqued, "I should not now be going to take
her out in London.
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