"You confess it--you actually confess it--you told a lie!"
The family consisted of four persons: Margaret Lester, widow, aged thirty six; Helen
Lester, her daughter, aged sixteen; Mrs. Lester's maiden aunts, Hannah and Hester Gray,
twins, aged sixty-seven. Waking and sleeping, the three women spent their days and night
in adoring the young girl; in watching the movements of her sweet spirit in the mirror of
her face; in refreshing their souls with the vision of her bloom and beauty; in listening to
the music of her voice; in gratefully recognizing how rich and fair for them was the world
with this presence in it; in shuddering to think how desolate it would be with this light
gone out of it.
By nature--and inside--the aged aunts were utterly dear and lovable and good, but in the
matter of morals and conduct their training had been so uncompromisingly strict that it
had made them exteriorly austere, not to say stern. Their influence was effective in the
house; so effective that the mother and the daughter conformed to its moral and religious
requirements cheerfully, contentedly, happily, unquestionably. To do this was become
second nature to them. And so in this peaceful heaven there were no clashings, no
irritations, no fault-finding, no heart-burnings.
In it a lie had no place. In it a lie was unthinkable. In it speech was restricted to absolute
truth, iron-bound truth, implacable and uncompromising truth, let the resulting
consequences be what they might. At last, one day, under stress of circumstances, the
darling of the house sullied her lips with a lie--and confessed it, with tears and self-
upbraidings. There are not any words that can paint the consternation of the aunts. It was
as if the sky had crumpled up and collapsed and the earth had tumbled to ruin with a
crash. They sat side by side, white and stern, gazing speechless upon the culprit, who was
on her knees before them with her face buried first in one lap and then the other, moaning
and sobbing, and appealing for sympathy and forgiveness and getting no response,
humbly kissing the hand of the one, then of the other, only to see it withdrawn as
suffering defilement by those soiled lips.
Twice, at intervals, Aunt Hester said, in frozen amazement:
Twice, at intervals, Aunt Hannah followed with the muttered and amazed ejaculation:
