Aunt Lavvy turned. "Emilius--for thirty-three years"--her voice broke as she quivered under her loaded anguish--"for thirty-three years you've shouted me down. You haven't let me call my soul my own. Yet it _is_ my own--" "There, please--_please_," Mamma said, "don't let us have any more of it," just as Aunt Lavvy was beginning to get a word in edgeways. "Mamma, that isn't fair, you must let her speak." "Yes. You must let me speak." Aunt Lavvy's voice thickened in her throat. "I won't have any discussion of Unitarianism here," said Papa. "It's you who have been discussing it, not I." "It is, really, Papa. First you began. Then Mamma." Mamma said, "If you've finished your supper, Mary, you can go." "But I haven't. I've not had any trifle yet." She thought: "They don't want me to hear them; but I've a right to sit here and eat trifle. They know they can't turn me out. I haven't done anything." Aunt Lavvy went on. "I've only one thing to say, Emilius. You've asked me to think of Victor and Charlotte, and you and Caroline and the boys and Mary. Have you once--in thirty-three years--for a single minute--thought of _me_?" "Certainly I have. It's partly for your own sake I object to your disgracing yourself. As if your sister Charlotte wasn't disgrace enough." Aunt Lavvy drew herself up stiff and straight in her white shawl like a martyr in her flame. "You might keep Charlotte out of it, I think." "I might. Charlotte can't help herself. You can." At this point Mamma burst into tears and left the room. "Now," he said, "I hope you're satisfied." Mary answered him. "I think _you_ ought to be, Papa, if you've been bullying Aunt Lavvy for thirty-three years. Don't you think it's about time you stopped?" Emilius stared at his daughter. His face flushed slowly. "I think," he said, "it's time you went to bed." "It isn't my bed-time for another hour yet." (A low murmur from Aunt Lavvy: "Don't, Mary, don't.") She went on. "It was you who made Mamma cry, not Aunt Lavvy. It always frightens her when you shout at people. You know Aunt Lavvy's a perfect saint, besides being lots cleverer than anybody in this house, except Mark. You get her by herself when she's tired out with Aunt Charlotte. You insult her religion. You say the beastliest things you can think of--" Her father pushed back his chair; they rose and looked at each other. "You wouldn't dare to do it if Mark was here!" He strode to the door and opened it. His arm made a crescent gesture that cleared space of her. "Go! Go upstairs. Go to bed!" "I don't care where I go now I've said it." Upstairs in her bed she still heard Aunt Lavvy's breaking voice: "For thirty-three years--for thirty-three years--" The scene rose again and swam before her and fell to pieces. Ideas--echoes--images. Religion--the truth of God. Her father's voice booming over the table. Aunt Lavvy's voice, breaking--breaking. A pile of stripped chicken bones on her father's plate. V.