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. His righteous wrath was much increased by the fact that for the last hour he had been engaged in preparing the defense of an uncommonly violent burglar, of whose guilt he himself was perfectly assured, and had found it extremely difficult to find any means by which he could possibly hope to convince any passably intelligent jury of his innocence. At the sight of Pollyooly, in his best forensic manner, he burst forthwith into a loud, but impassioned, harangue on the vileness of lying and deceit.

Pollyooly heard him patiently to the end of it; but since she prided herself on the veracity her aunt had so firmly instilled into her, her spirit began to glow; and she said with some heat, "I didn't tell any lie, sir; I wouldn't. I said that my aunt wasn't any better, and she wasn't. How could she be when she was dead?"

For a moment Mr. Gedge-Tomkins was taken aback by the justness of this reasoning; then he cried, with even more eloquent indignation, and an even redder face, "It was worse; you acted a lie—you deliberately acted a lie. Oh, I see a black future before you! If, at the age of twelve, you can form a dishonest plan of this kind, and carry it out with