THE PREVARICATION STORY. 77

back into the barn yard, and so penned him
up,and caught him there. At any rate, they
_caught him somehow or other, and got the
halter; and then the two boys, feeling guilty
and miserable, set out on their return home.

“They began to consider what they must
tell their father, and after some plotting and
planning, they concluded that they could
make out a tolerably good excuse, without
absolutely telling a lie. The story which
they concluded to tell was this, that they led
the heifer to the place as they were directed,
and that there some boys got the halter, and
put it upon a ram; and then that the ram got
away, and it took them a long time to catch
him again.

“This story, now, was all true; that is,
every thing stated in it was according to fact;
and yet the whole was meant to deceive,
and that is what they call prevarication.”

‘But how could it deceive, if it was all
true?”’ asked Lucy.

“Why, you see,” said Jonas, in reply,
“that they said some boys got the halter,
and that was true; but then they them-
selves proposed it, and helped put it on.
And then they said it took them a good

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