It was a tragic afternoon--that middle-aged woman convicted of these unheard-of things, and berated by her nieces whose family pride was stung, yet whose affection for her persisted in spite of it all. We were baffled and bewildered by her conduct in the first place, and her inaccessibility to reason in the next. She attempted no defence; would not meet our arguments; would declare things that were so were not so, till repeatedly confronted with them; then would stand there, sad-eyed, like a creature at bay, sometimes darkly hinting, “You don’t know, you can’t understand.” “What is it we can’t understand? Tell us, let us try,” we urged. Convinced that there was a dread mystery somewhere, we tried in vain to fathom it. Was there some terrible thing concerning the poor-spirited uncle about which we did not know? But all the time we would come back to the thought that nothing, _nothing_ excused this strange conduct. We cried, we pleaded, we threatened, we entreated; she would not promise to mend her ways or even admit that they needed mending; yet with a strange insistence showed as much persistence in urging us to go to that party and wear our velveteen gowns as we showed in urging her to begin a radical reform in this matter of household management, concerning which there could be no two rational opinions. In the heat of argument, and knowing her strong interest in church affairs, I said, “Why, Aunt Ann, how _can_ you do as you do? You know the Bible says that ‘Cleanliness is next to godliness.’” Her eye lighted in triumph, and quick as a flash she retorted, “That isn’t in the Bible, you can’t find it in the Bible.” For a minute I was chagrined, and she harped on it unmercifully; but I finally told her it ought to be in the Bible, if it wasn’t; after which I railed against the kind of Christianity that would let one teach a class in Sunday school while leading such an unclean daily life. Sister and I alternated between righteous indignation and crying for shame. Aunt Ann seemed to harbour no resentment toward us but remained unmoved. I am convinced now that there was some delusional development back of those strange ways; yet those who knew her then, and who have known her since, who see her only as she appears when out among folk, would say one must be crazy to suggest that she is not in her right mind. All this gave me an ominous feeling as to my inheritance. It also served to make both Sister and me extremely fastidious in matters of personal neatness. We made a kind of god of cleanliness from that dreadful afternoon when we realized that one of our own kin had developed these strange ways. I resolved that whatever else heredity developed in me, I would steer clear of that particular line of offense.