82 THE PREVARICATION STORY.

Iadmit; but yet suppose those boys had
come home, and had said directly that the
other boys took away the halter from them
forcibly, notwithstanding all they could do |
to prevent it, immediately after they had got
to the house, —thus had told a deliberate
and positive lie, would not that have been a
little worse?”

“Why, yes, sir,” said Lucy; “it would
have been, certainly.”

‘“‘T think it would have been a little worse,
myself. But prevarication is a very great
sin, and must make any one miserable who
is guilty of it; and yet, wicked as it is,
wilful and deliberate lying is one step be-
yond it, in the career of depravity.”