In the mansion of the human soul there are many chambers; Aunt Aggie’s contradictions were numberless; but, on broad lines it may be said that her assurance of the injustice of her own fate was balanced only by her conviction of the good luck of everyone else. She hoped, perpetually, that they would all recognise this—namely, that their Life had treated them with the most wonderful good fortune. Her brother George Trenchard, for instance, with his careless habits, his indifference to the facts of life, his obvious selfishness. What disasters he would, had he not been incredibly favoured, most surely have encountered! Aunt Aggie was afraid that he did not sufficiently realise this, and so, in order that he might offer up thanks to God, she reminded him, as often as was possible, of his failings. Thus, too, with the others. Even Katherine, for whom she cared deeply, betrayed, at times, a haughty and uplifted spirit, and, frequently forestalled her aunt’s intended unselfishness, thus, in a way, rebuking her aunt, a thing that a niece should never do. With this consciousness of her relations’ failings went an insatiable curiosity. Aunt Aggie, because she was the finest character in the family, should be rewarded by the trust and confidence of the family; she must, at any rate, maintain the illusion that she received it. Did they keep her quiet with little facts and stories that were of no importance, she must make them important in order to support her dignity. She made them very important indeed.... A great factor was her religion. She was, like her sister, a most sincere and devout member of the Church of England. She believed in God as revealed to her by relations and clergymen in the day of her baptism; time and a changing world had done nothing to shake her confidence. But, unlike her sisters, she believed that this God existed chiefly as a friend and supporter of Miss Agnes Trenchard. He had other duties and purposes, of course, but did not hide from her His especial interest in herself. The knowledge of this gave her great confidence. She was now fifty years of age, and believed that she was still twenty-five; that is not to say that she dressed as a young woman or encouraged, any longer, the possibility of romantic affairs. It was simply that the interest and attraction that she offered to the world as a fine and noble character were the same as they had ever been—and if the world did not recognize this that was because fine and noble characters were few and difficult to discover. One knew this because the Trenchard family offered so seldom an example of one, and the Trenchards were, of course, the finest people in England.