It was very queer. Aunt Lavvy's opinions had something to do with religion, yet Mamma said you mustn't talk about them. "I promised, too. I shall have to confess and ask her to forgive me." "Then," said Aunt Lavvy, "be sure you tell her that I didn't talk to you. Promise me you'll tell her." That was what Aunt Charlotte had said. Talking about religion was like talking about being born. XI I. Nobody has any innate ideas. Children and savages and idiots haven't any, so grown-up people can't have, Mr. Locke says. But how did he know? You might have them and forget about them, and only remember again after you were grown up. She sat up in the drawing-room till nine o'clock now, because she was eleven years old. She had taken the doll's clothes out of the old wooden box and filled it with books: the Bible, Milton, and Pope's Homer, the Greek Accidence, and _Plutarch's Lives_, and the Comedies from Papa's illustrated Shakespeare in seven volumes, which he never read, and two volumes of _Pepys' Diary_, and Locke _On the Human Understanding_. She wished the Bible had been bound in pink calf like Pepys instead of the shiny black leather that made you think of wet goloshes. Then it would have looked new and exciting like the other books. She sat on a footstool with her box beside her in the corner behind Mamma's chair. She had to hide there because Mamma didn't believe you really liked reading. She thought you were only shamming and showing off. Sometimes Mr. and Mrs. Farmer would come in, and Mr. Farmer would play chess with Papa while Mrs. Farmer talked to Mamma about how troublesome and independent the tradespeople were, and how hard it was to get servants and to keep them. Mamma listened to Mrs. Farmer as if she were saying something wonderful and exciting. Sometimes it would be the Proparts; or Mr. Batty would come in alone. And sometimes they would all come together with the aunts and uncles, and there would be a party. Mary always hoped that Uncle Victor would notice her and say, "Mary is reading Locke _On the Human Understanding_," or that Mr. Propart would come and turn over the books and make some interesting remark. But they never did. At half-past eight Catty would bring in the tea-tray; the white and grey and gold tea-cups would be set out round the bulging silver tea-pot that lifted up its spout with a foolish, pompous expression, like a hen. Mamma would move about the table in her mauve silk gown, and there would be a scent of cream and strong tea. Every now and then the shimmering silk and the rich scent would come between her and the grey, tight-pressed, difficult page. "'The senses at first let in particular ideas and furnish the yet empty cabinet: and the mind growing by degrees familiar with some of them, they are lodged in the memory and names got to them.' "Then how--Then how?--" The thought she thought was coming wouldn't come, and Mamma was telling her to get up and hand round the bread and butter. II.