“Oh, Miss Patty, there’s a deal of difference. A tarradiddle is what you say when you are, so to speak, took by surprise. It isn’t a lie out and out; it’s the truth concealed, I call it. Sometimes it is a mere exaggeration. You say a person is very, very cross when maybe that person is hardly cross at all. I can’t quite explain, miss; I suppose there’s scarcely any one who hasn’t been guilty of a tarradiddle; but a lie—a thought-out lie—never.”
“Is a lie so very awful?” asked Patty.
“Awful!” repeated nurse.
She rose solemnly from her seat, went up to Patty, and put her hand under her chin.
“Don’t you ever catch me a-seeing you a-doing of it,” she said. “I wouldn’t own one of you Dales if you told falsehoods. A black lie the Bible speaks of as a thing that ain’t lightly forgiven. But, of course, you have never told a lie. Oh, my dear, sweet young lady, you quite frightened me! To think that one of my children could be guilty of a sin like that!”
Patty made no answer.
“I am tired of work,” she said; “I am going out.”
She flung down the skirt that she was helping to unpick and let the scissors fall to the ground.
“You might put your work tidily away, Miss Patty. You aren’t half as useful and helpful as you ought to be.”
Patty laid the skirt on a chair and slipped away. Nurse continued her occupation.