“Are you equally sure that she never says what is false to cover a fault; in fact, out of cowardice?”
“No; I think I have found her out more than once in ingenious subterfuges. You know what a painfully nervous child she is. For instance, I found the other day a blue cup off that cabinet, with handle gone, hidden behind the woodwork. Fanny happened to come in at the moment, and I asked her if she knew who had broken it.
“‘No, mother, I don’t know, but I think it was Mary, when she was dusting the cabinet; indeed, I’m nearly sure I heard a crash.’
“But the child could not meet my eye, and there was a sort of blenching as of fear about her.”
“But, as a rule, you do not notice these symptoms?”
“As a rule, poor Fanny’s tarradiddles come out in the most quiet, easy way, with all the boldness of innocence; and even when she is found out, and the lie brought home to her, she looks bewildered rather than convicted.”
“My dear, I wish you would banish the whole tribe of foolish and harmful expressions whose tendency is to make light of sin. Call a spade a spade. A ‘tarradiddle’ is a thing to make merry over; a fib you smile and wink at; but a lie—why, the soul is very far gone from original righteousness that can endure the name, even while guilty of the thing.”
“That’s just it; I cannot endure to apply so black a name to the failings of our child; for, do you know, I begin to suspect that poor little Fanny does it unawares—does not know in the least that she has departed from the fact. I have had a horrible dread upon me from time to time that her defect is a mental, and not a moral one. That she has not the clear perception of true and false with which the most of us are blessed.”
“Whe—ew!” from John; but his surprise was feigned. I could see now that he had known what was going on all the time, and had said nothing, because he had nothing to say; in his heart he agreed with me about our lovely child. The defect arose from a clouded intelligence, which showed itself in this way only, now; but how dare we look forward? Now I saw why poor John was so anxious to have the offence called by the blackest moral name. He wished to save us from the suspicion of an evil—worse because less open to cure. We looked blankly at each other, John trying to carry it all off with a light air, but his attempt was a conspicuous failure.
I forgot to say that my sister Emma was staying with us, the ‘clever woman of the family,’ who was “going in” for all sorts of things, to come out, we believed, at the top of her profession as a lady doctor. She had taken no part in the talk about Fanny—rather tiresome of her, as I wanted to know what she thought; but now, while we were vainly trying to hide from each other our dismay, she broke out into a long low laugh, which, to say the least of it, seemed a little unfeeling.