nger of becoming a
Catholic. I believe she had an aunt that was one, and she had visited
several times in Norfolk and Baltimore, where it was said there were a
good many. I remember she used to defend them, and say she knew a great
many very devout ones. And she admitted that she sometimes went to the
Catholic church, and found it devotional; the choral service, she said,
satisfied something in her soul. It happened to be in the evening that
she was talking about this. She sat down at the piano, and played some
of the Gregorian chants she had heard, and it had a soothing influence
on everyone. Even Joe, the fidgetiest of all, sat quite still through
it. She said that some one had said it was the music that the angels
sing in heaven around the great white throne, and there was no other
sacred music like it. But she played another thing that evening which
she said was worthy to be played with it. It had some chords in it that
I remembered long afterward. Years afterward I heard it played the same
way in the twilight by one who is a blessed saint in heaven, and may be
playing it there now. It was from Chopin. She even said that evening,
under the impulse of her enthusiasm, that she did not see, except that
it might be abused, why the crucifix should not be retained by all
Christian churches, as it enabled some persons not gifted with strong
imaginations to have a more vivid realization of the crucified Saviour.
This, of course, was going too far, and it created considerable
excitement in the family, and led to some very serious talk being given
her, in which the second commandment figured largely. It was considered
as carrying old-maidism to an extreme length. For some time afterward
she was rather discountenanced. In reality, I think what some said was
true: it was simply that she was emotional, as old maids are apt to be.
She once said that many women have the nun's instinct largely developed,
and sigh for the peace of the cloister.

She seemed to be very fond of artists. She had the queerest tastes, and
had, or had had when she was young, one or two friends who, I believe,
claimed to be something of that kind; she used to talk about them to old
Blinky. But it seemed to us from what she said that artists never did
any work; just spent their time lounging around, doing nothing, and
daubing paint on their canvas with brushes like a painter, or chiselling
and chopping rocks like a mason. One of these friends of hers was a
y