“Julia,” I asked, “did you take the hog man’s money?” “No,” she snapped, bristling. She lied bravely, and I knew it, and respected her for it, somehow. It was one of those lies you know to be a lie and yet believe. The beauty of her lie was that she just let it go with that plain, short “No!” She did not go into any long explanations or excuses, or blame it on anybody else. It was a perfect lie, any way you look at it.
