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.
During the time we lived in the Thiergarten my mother's hand scarcely ever touched my face except in a caress.

Every memory of her is bright and beautiful.