It is true. She's not a good girl from a good family, and Fagin is not an honest man. There's no lies there, nor is it a lie when she nods meekly, because he does frighten her. There's still part of that little girl that lives inside of her, that wants to make him happy and doesn't want him to hurt her. He'd used his cane against her and the boys before, and she knew, even that she no longer lived with him, that he would do it to her again. She had no one to protect her from Fagin, so she tried to keep him placated as best she could.

The memories are still so fresh and she uses them, some vase tumbling off of one of the higher shelves.

The best lies, she knows, aren't lies at all. So she would tell the truth to get herself out of here. "He- he raised me," she tries, refusing to look at Childermass, but rather, towards Norrell. "He's a very bad man- he set me to the streets when I was a child, just as he has with the boys."