After a pause Lady Harriet started up and said—"I used to take you as my arbiter of morals when I was a little girl. Tell me, do you think it wrong to tell lies?"
"Oh, my dear! how can you ask such questions?—of course it is very wrong,—very wicked indeed, I think I may say. But I know you were only joking when you said you had told lies."
"No, indeed, I wasn't. I told as plump fat lies as you would wish to hear. I said I 'was obliged to go into Hollingford on business,' when the truth was there was no obligation in the matter, only an insupportable desire of being free from my visitors for an hour or two, and my only business was to come here, and yawn, and complain, and lounge at my leisure. I really think I'm unhappy at having told a story, as children express it."
"But, my dear Lady Harriet," said Mrs. Gibson, a little puzzled as to the exact meaning of the words that were trembling on her tongue, "I am sure you thought that you meant what you said, when you said it."
"No, I didn't," put in Lady Harriet.
"And besides, if you didn't, it was the fault of the tiresome people who drove you into such straits—yes, it was certainly their fault, not yours—and then you know the conventions of society—ah, what trammels they are!"
Lady Harriet was silent for a minute or two; then she said,—"Tell me, Clare; you've told lies sometimes, haven't you?"
"Lady Harriet! I think you might have known me better; but I know you don't mean it, dear."
"Yes, I do. You must have told white lies, at any rate. How did you feel after them?"
"I should have been miserable if I ever had. I should have died of self-reproach. 'The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,' has always seemed to me such a fine passage. But then I have so much that is unbending in my nature, and in our sphere of life there are so few temptations. If we are humble, we are also simple, and unshackled by etiquette."