But once--and it was an incident which, whether or not Mrs. Bruce
forgot it herself, her friend never did, since it furnished a key to
much of the past, and a serious outlook for the future--Boy committed
an error which threw his mother into an agony of agitation such as she
had not betrayed since she came back, a widow, to Cairnforth.
Her little son told a lie! It was a very small lie, such as dozens of
children tell--are punished and pardoned--but a lie it was. It
happened on August morning, when the raspberries for which the Manse was
famous. He was desired not to touch them--"not to lay a finger on
them," insisted the mother. And he promised. But, alas! The promises
of four years old are not absolutely reliable; and so that which
happened once in a more ancient garden happened in the garden of the
Manse. Boy plucked and ate. He came back to his mother with his white
pinafore all marked and his red mouth redder still with condemnatory
stains. Yet, when asked "if he had touched the raspberries," he opened
that wicked mouth and said, unblushingly, "No!"
Of course it was an untruth--self-evident; in its very simplicity
almost amusing; but the earl was not prepared for the effect it seemed
to have upon Helen.
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