has endowed your son, and have fairly set him on the way to become a
monster instead of an angel. I don't see how the most devoted father can
possibly have any affection for a son who keeps all his emotions under
lock and key."

This outburst, which proceeded from the tenderness I would fain have felt
for the boy, seemed to strike his mother dumb.

"Tell me, my dear, if you feel yourself capable of shewing me that
confidence which a father has a right to expect of a good son, and if you
can promise to be perfectly open and unreserved towards me?"

"I promise that I will die rather than tell you a falsehood."

"That's just like him," said the mother. "I have succeeded in inspiring
him with the utmost horror of untruthfulness."

"That's all very well, my dear madam, but you might have pursued a still
better course, and one which would have been still more conducive to his
happiness."

"What is that?"

"I will tell you. It was necessary to make him detest a lie; you should
have rather endeavoured to make him a lover of the truth by displaying it
to him in all its native beauty. This is the only way to make him
lovable, and love is the sole bestower of happiness in this world."

"But isn't it the same thing not to lie and to tell the truth," said the
boy, with a smile which charmed his mother and displeased me.