White and black lies

by Madeline Leslie

The young man laughed.

"I had no idea I was telling tales," he said; "but I happened in one day when you were not at home. The girls were earnest in their admiration of the engravings, and in her zeal, Ellen pulled it from her sister, though her hands were half full of fruit. Ask them; they will tell you about it."

The father opened his pocket-book, laid down the price of the volume, and walked out of the store without another word. Perhaps in all the years since his wife died, he had never so forcibly realized the responsibility which rested upon him as he did during that short walk. What adepts in lying his daughters must have become, when they could so entirely deceive him! His boy, too,—there was no knowing how soon he would follow their example. Before he reached his own steps, his eyes seemed for the first time open to the fact that Aunt Clarissa, however excellent a housekeeper, was not equal to the moral training of his children.

On entering the house, he sent for his daughters, and was deeply pained to see how readily they reiterated the falsehood, and, even when he convinced them he was aware of the fact that they had deceived him, how little shame they exhibited at the detection. Indeed, they did not feel that they had committed a grave offence, nor realize that not only had they deceived a kind, indulgent parent, but had violated one of God's holy commands, "Lie not one to another."

A sharp pang shot through the heart of Mr. Saunders, as he remembered how entirely he had neglected to teach his children their accountability to God. After a few words to them, expressing his horror of their crime, he dismissed them abruptly, and passed the next hour in forming resolutions for the future. He realized, for the first time,—because circumstances had not heretofore brought the subject before him,—that if they went on as they were now going, with no counter-influences to check their impulses, they would be ruined. Something must be done, and that at once, to change their whole course of conduct.

If Mr. Saunders had been a Christian father, he would have reasoned differently. He would have said, "My children are by nature sinful; the seeds of corruption have begun to take root, and must be exterminated. The grace of God and the constant instructions of his holy word alone can do this. I will give them line upon line, and precept upon precept, and pray for God's blessing upon the result."

But, as it was, he saw the evil, yet was puzzled as to the cure. That night but little sleep came to his pillow, and the morning dawned with only one advance upon the doubts of the preceding day, and that was a resolve to consult a friend, who had several daughters of her own, as to the course he had better pursue.

Mrs. Peters was a woman of the world. It was her ambition that her children should excel and shine in society. She therefore was unwearied in her devotion to what she considered their best interests. She would have thought it a sin to omit one of their studies, or to remit an hour of their daily penance of sitting with their feet in the stocks, with their arms tightly braced back to give grace and vigor to their frames. They were to be outwardly polished and beautiful; but she had not given a thought to the fashioning of their souls in the image of their Saviour. She condoled with Mr. Saunders, as to the state of perplexity in which he found himself, and advised him at once to send Alice to a fashionable boarding school, where she would be taught every accomplishment, and where, of course, she would soon learn that lying and all those things were very low and unladylike.

Though not entirely convinced by her reasoning, Mr. Saunders determined to follow her advice, and in less than a month, Alice became a member of Mrs. Lerow's celebrated school for young ladies, where for the present we shall leave her.

Now that his attention had once been directed to the subject, the gentleman watched closely his other daughter, and was pained to perceive that, with many fine traits, she was growing up not only a liar, but passionate and self-willed. It was evident she needed a firm, careful hand to direct her physical and moral training for a few years.