seemed a great pity that
there should be any concealment between herself and the other Elsie.
As things stood, she was sufficiently involved in concealment, to give
it no worse name, without that. It had been understood that she should
read all the letters that came before sending them on to Enderby; but
to keep one and never mention it, necessary though it was, and demanded
by circumstances, seemed somehow almost like stealing.

And the worst was that circumstances might go on making demands, and
she might have to do yet more reprehensible things--things that weren't
merely _almost_ like wrong-doing. Some day she might have to lie right
out.

Well, as to that, what had it been when she said that her mother's name
was Pritchard? That had been acting--a part of her role. And then, of
course she constantly deceived Miss Pritchard, in a way, though not
dishonestly. That was acting, too. She and Elsie Marley had entered
into a contract, indeed, each to act the part of the other. They
weren't hurting any one: each fitted into the wrong place as she
couldn't have into the right. And yet in very truth it was very much
like plain lying!

Elsie Moss flinched. Then she recollected how once at home some of the
girls of her class at school had been discussing a subject given in the
rhetoric they studied under "Argumentation"--"Is a lie ever
justifiable?" These girls of the "Per aspera ad astra" motto had
decided the question in the affirmative. They had agreed that lying to
a burglar wasn't wrong--it might prevent him from robbing a widow or
one's own mother--the same with regard to a murderer, an insane person,
or one sick unto death. And one and all had declared with spirit that
if they lived in England and a hunting-party should come along with
their cruel hounds and ask which way the fox or hare had gone, they
would point in exactly the wrong direction. Elsie herself had declared
that she would have said that the little creature hadn't come this way
at all.

Not that that was exactly similar. The girl owned that however she
might please Miss Pritchard, and Elsie Marley might gratify Uncle John,
in each case it was the girl herself who benefited chiefly by the
scheme, and for whom it had been arranged and carried through.
Pleasing Uncle John and Cousin Julia was what is called in chemistry a
by-product.

Furthermore, there was the question as to whether Cousin Julia, in any
event, would value satisfaction s