ages of ten, twelve, and fourteen. But I do not know that we are at all increasing the measure of strictness with which we, grown-up people, regulate our own truth and falsehood. Heaven forbid that I should be thought to advocate falsehood in children; but an untruth is more pardonable in them than in their parents. Lady Lufton's tarradiddle was of a nature that is usually considered excusable—at least with grown people; but, nevertheless, she would have been nearer to perfection could she have confined herself to the truth. Let us suppose that a boy were to write home from school saying that another boy had promised to come and stay with him, that other having given no such promise—what a very naughty boy would that first boy be in the eyes of his pastors and masters!
That little conversation between Lord Lufton and his mother, in which nothing was said about his lordship's parliamentary duties, took place on the evening before he started for London. On that occasion he certainly was not in his best humor, nor did he behave to his mother in his kindest manner. He had then left the room when she began to talk about Miss Grantly; and once again in the course of the evening, when his mother, not very judiciously, said a word or two about Griselda's beauty, he had remarked that she was no conjurer, and would hardly set the Thames on fire.
"If she were a conjurer!" said Lady Lufton, rather piqued, "I should not now be going to take her out in London. I know many of those sort of girls whom you call conjurers; they can talk forever, and always talk either loudly or in a whisper. I don't like them, and I am sure that you do not in your heart."
"Oh, as to liking them in my heart—that is being very particular."
"Griselda Grantly is a lady, and, as such, I shall be happy to have her with me in town. She is just the girl that Justinia will like to have with her."
"Exactly," said Lord Lufton. "She will do exceedingly well for Justinia."
Now this was not good-natured on the part of Lord Lufton; and his mother felt it the more strongly, inasmuch as it seemed to signify that he was setting his back up against the Lufton-Grantly alliance. She had been pretty sure that he would do so in the event of his suspecting that a plot
