“But I may not mean that you are like the rest. The man who fell among thieves, you know, had one good neighbor.”
“Now, Cousin Tom,” she said, looking up with sparkling eyes, “I can't return the compliment. You meant to make me feel that I was like the rest—at least like what you say they are. You know you did. And now you are just turning round, and trying to slip out of it by saying what you don't mean.”
“Well, Cousin Mary, perhaps I was. At any rate I was a great fool for my pains. I might have known by this time that you would catch me out fast enough.”
“Perhaps you might. I didn't challenge you to set up your Palace of Truth. But, if we are to live in it, you are not to say all the disagreeable things and hear none of them.”
“I hope not, if they must be disagreeable. But why should they be? I can't see why you and I, for instance, should not say exactly what we are thinking to one another without being disagreeable.”
“Well, I don't think you made a happy beginning just now.”
“But I am sure we should all like one another the better for speaking the truth.”
“Yes; but I don't admit that I haven't been speaking the truth.”
“You won't understand me. Have I said that you don't speak the truth?”
“Yes, you said just now that I don't say what I think and mean. Well, perhaps you didn't exactly say that, but that is what you meant:”