often unable to distinguish whether
the plausible tale related by some one else belonged to the realm of
fact or fiction. On such occasions we appealed to my mother, and her
answer instantly set all doubts at rest; for we thought she could never
be mistaken, and knew that she always told the truth.

As to the stories invented by myself, I fared like other imaginative
children. I could imagine the most marvellous things about every member
of the household, and while telling them--but only during that time--I
often fancied that they were true; yet the moment I was asked whether
these things had actually occurred, it seemed as if I woke from a
dream. I at once separated what I had imagined from what I had actually
experienced, and it would never have occurred to me to persist against
my better knowledge. So the vividly awakened power of imagination led
neither me, my brothers and sisters, nor my children and grandchildren
into falsehood.

In after years I abhorred it, not only because my mother would rather
have permitted any other offence to pass unpunished, but because I had
an opportunity of perceiving its ugliness very early in life. When only
seven or eight years old I heard a boy--I still remember his name--tell
his mother a shameless lie about some prank in which I had shared. I did
not interrupt him to vindicate the truth, but I shrank in horror with
the feeling of having witnessed a crime.

If Ludo and I, even in the most critical situations, adhered to the
truth more rigidly than other boys, we "little ones" owe it especially
to our sister Paula, who was always a fanatic in its cause, and even
now endures many an annoyance because she scorns the trivial "necessary
fibs" deemed allowable by society.

True, the interesting question of how far necessary fibs are justifiable
among children, is yet to be considered; but what did we know of such
necessity in our sports in the Thiergarten? From what could a lie have
saved us except a blow from a beloved mother's little hand, which, it is
true, when any special misdeed was punished by a box on the ear, could
inflict a tolerable amount of pain by means of the rings which adorned
it.

There is a tradition that once when she had slapped Paula's pretty face,
the odd child rubbed her cheek and said, with the droll calmness that
rarely deserted her, "When you want to strike me again, mother, please
take off your rings first."

THE GOVERNESS--THE CEMETERY.