onderful knack at putting on
her clothes, which might be esteemed a purely feminine brain, in her
fingers. Charles Edward really has brains, although he is a round peg
in a square hole, and as for Alice, her brains are above the normal,
although she unfortunately knows it, and Billy, if he ever gets away
from Alice, will show what he is made of. Maria's intellect is all
right, although cast in a petty mould. She repeats Grandmother Evarts,
which is a pity, because there are types not worth repeating. Maria if
she had not her husband Tom to manage, would simply fall on her face. It
goes hard with a purely patronizing soul when there is nobody to manage;
there is apt to be an explosion. However, Maria HAS Tom. But none of my
brother's family, not even my dear sister-in-law, Cyrus's wife, have the
right point of view with regard to the present, possibly on account
of the mansard-roof which has overshadowed them. They do not know that
today an old-maid aunt is as much of an anomaly as a spinning-wheel,
that she has ceased to exist, that she is prehistoric, that even
grandmothers have almost disappeared from off the face of the earth. In
short, they do not know that I am not an old-maid aunt except under this
blessed mansard-roof, and some other roofs of Eastridge, many of which
are also mansard, where the influence of their fixed belief prevails.
For instance, they told the people next door, who have moved here
recently, that the old-maid aunt was coming, and so, when I went to call
with my sister-in-law, Mrs. Temple saw her quite distinctly. To think of
Ned Temple being married to a woman like that, who takes things on trust
and does not use her own eyes! Her two little girls are exactly like
her. I wonder what Ned himself will think. I wonder if he will see that
my hair is as red-gold as Peggy's, that I am quite as slim, that there
is not a line on my face, that I still keep my girl color with no aid,
that I wear frills of the latest fashion, and look no older than when he
first saw me. I really do not know myself how I have managed to remain
so intact; possibly because I have always grasped all the minor sweets
of life, even if I could not have the really big worth-while ones. I
honestly do not think that I have had the latter. But I have not taken
the position of some people, that if I cannot have what I want most I
will have nothing. I have taken whatever Providence chose to give me in
the way of small sweets, and made t