“But mind that it be very love, my maid. That is not love, but unlove, which will help a friend to break God’s commandments.”
I had liefer he had let that last alone. It sticketh in my throat somewhat. Yet have I Father’s consent to loving: and surely none need break God’s commandments because they love each other. ’Tis no breaking thereof for me to meet and talk with Sir Edwin—of that am I as certain as that my name is Milisent. And I have not told a single lie about it, sithence my good Protection revealed in mine ear the right way not to tell lies: namely, should Mother ask me, “Milly, hast thou seen again that gentleman?” that I should say out loud, “No, Mother,”—and whisper to myself, under my breath, “this morrow,”—the which should make it perfectly true. And right glad was I to hear of this most neat and delicate way of saving the truth, and yet not uttering your secrets.
Selwick Hall, November ye xxii.
If Mistress Helena Louvaine could ever hold her peace from saying just the very matter that I would give her a broad shilling to be quiet on! Here, now, this even, when all we were sat in hall, what should she begin with, but—
“Father, there is a thing I would ask at you.”
“Say on, my maid,” quoth he, right kindly as his wont is: for Father is alway ready to counsel us maids, whensoever we may desire it.
“Then, Father,” saith she, “what is falsehood? Where doth it begin and end? Put a case that I am talking with Alice Lewthwaite, and she shall ask me somewhat that I list not to tell her. Should I commit sin, if I told her but the half?”
“Hardly plain enough, my maid,” saith Father. “As to where falsehood begins and ends,—it begins in thine heart: but where it ends, who shall tell but God? But set forth thy case something plainer.”
“Well,” saith she, “suppose, Father, that Mother or you had showed to me that Wat was coming home, but had (for some cause you wist, and I not) bidden me not to tell the same. If Alice should say ‘Hast heard aught of late touching Wat, Nell?’ must I say to her plain, ‘I cannot answer thee,’—the which should show her there was a secret: or should there be no ill to say ‘Not to-day,’ or ‘Nought much,’ or some such matter as that?”
“Should there be any wrong in that, Father?” saith Edith, as though she could not think there should.