THE PREVARICATION STORY. 79

“In the mean time the boys’ father, after
waiting and waiting, and finding that night
was coming on, and. they did not return,
went out into the barn to do the work there,
necessary to be done before night, and which
the boys ought to have been at home to do.
While he was there, and doing their work, they
arrived, feeling very anxious and unhappy.
They went first into the house; there they
found their mother, and told her their story.
She was not satisfied with it, but said they
must go to their father in the barn. They
went accordingly into the barn, and there
repeated the excuse they had agreed upon.”

‘And what did their father say ?”’ asked
Rollo, eagerly.

‘He did not say any thing. The boys
observed that he looked displeased when
they first came in; but after they had told
their story, he seemed satisfied, and said no
more about it. He knew his boys would
not tell a lie, and he thought they were
honest in heart as well as in tongue, and did
not think of such a thing as their artfully
putting together a story, true in all its parts,
and yet false in the whole. So he believed
them, and by and by, when they went into