The tears came into my eyes, for I could imagine the scene too. I could see the way to draw my child closer and closer by _always_ forgiving, always comprehending and loving her, and always protesting against the falsehood which _would_ rise between us. I was lost in a delicious reverie--how I might sometime come to show her that her mother’s ever-ready forgiveness was but a faint picture of what some one calls the “all-forgiving gentleness of God,” when I heard John break in:-- “Yes, I can see that if we both make a point of free and tender forgiveness of every fault, on condition that she owns up, we may in time cure her of lying out of sheer fear. But I don’t see that she gets the principle of truth any more. The purely inventive lies go on as before, and the child is not to be trusted.” “‘Purely inventive,’ there you have it. Don’t you see? The child is full of imagination, and figures to herself endless scenes, evolved like the German student’s camel. The thousand and one things which _might_ happen are so real to her that the child is, as you said, bewildered; hardly able to distinguish the one which has happened. Now, it’s perfect nonsense to lament over this as a moral failing--it is a want of mental balance; not that any quality is deficient, but that her conceptive power runs away with her perceptive; she sees the many things that might be more readily than the thing that is. Doesn’t she delight in fairy tales?” “Well, to tell the truth, we have thought them likely to foster her failing, and have kept her a good deal on a diet of facts.” “I shouldn’t wonder if you are wrong there. An imperious imagination like Fanny’s demands its proper nourishment. Let her have her daily meal: ‘The Babes in the Wood,’ ‘The Little Match-Girl,’ ‘The Snow-Maiden,’ tales and legends half-historic, above all, the lovely stories of the Bible; whatever she can figure to herself and live over and over; but _not_ twaddling tales of the daily doings of children like herself, whether funny or serious. The child wants an opening into the larger world where all things are possible and where beautiful things are always happening. Give her in some form this necessary food, and her mind will be so full of delicious imaginings, that she will be under no temptation to invent about the commonplaces of every-day life.” My husband laughed: “My dear Emma, you must let us do our best with the disease; the cure is too wild! ‘Behold, this dreamer cometh!’--think of sending the child through life with this label.” “Your quotation is unfortunate, and you have not heard me out. I do believe that to starve her imagination would be to do real wrong to the child. But, at the same time, you must diligently cultivate the knowledge and the love of the truth. Now, the truth is no more than the fact as it is; and ’tis my belief that Fanny’s falsehoods come entirely from want of perception of the fact through pre-occupation of mind.” “Well, what must we do?”