I admit I told him a
falsehood, but I did so for the honor and exaltation of my child. You
will not betray me, Lucy?"
"Father," said she, "I regret that you make these torturing
communications to me. God knows I wish to love and respect you, but
when, under solemn circumstances, you utter, by your own admission, a
deliberate falsehood to a man of the purest truth and honor; when
you knowingly and wilfully mislead him for selfish and ambitious
purposes;--nay, I will retract these words, and suppose it is from an
anxiety to secure me rank and happiness,--I say, father, when you thus
forget all that constitutes the integrity and dignity of man, and stoop
to the discreditable meanness of falsehood, I ask you, is it manly,
or honorable, or affectionate, to involve me in proceedings so utterly
shameful, and to ask me to abet you in such a wanton perversion
of truth? Sir, there are fathers--indeed, I believe, most fathers
living--who would rather see any child of theirs stretched and
shrouded up in the grave than know them to be guilty of such a base and
deliberate violation of all the sacred principles of truth as this.
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