than lie. Lying is worse than anything else. Do you understand? I would rather have you do anything than lie about it."
"What things?" Sara inquired with interest.
"Well, I'd rather have you selfish and hateful to the baby and well—have you act like a bad little girl, rather than have you lie."
"Would you rather I was dirty and say, 'No I won't!' 'Yes, I will,' 'I won't do it,' and screech awful loud?"
"Indeed, yes. Those things are very naughty, but lying is worse. Whenever you start to say what isn't true, say to yourself, 'No. I won't lie.' Say it over after Father."
"I'll say, 'No. I won't lie. I won't! I won't!'" Sara emphasized this laudable sentiment by clapping one hand on the other and shaking her head.
"Don't ever be afraid to tell the truth."
"I am not afraid. I'm not a 'fraid cat. Jamie's a 'fraid cat, but I'm big." She seemed to have grown two inches.
"But you don't always tell the truth."
"Don't I?" she asked.
"Think. Do you?"
She regarded her father speculatively.
"Not every time," she said at last.
At the end of such an interview Tom would comfort himself by thinking that light was going to dawn. He had been working harder than ever over Sara ever since his mother—his own mother—had said:
"It seems to me you're making an awful to-do about Sara's fanciful ways. Lots of little children had just as soon lie as tell the truth, and later on outgrow it."
No young parent can fail to shudder at the laxity of such a sentiment, for when does one begin to inculcate the element of character if not in the very first years of
