"Mamma says it is as good as a play to hear her go on about people, and
what they are like, and what they are going to do, and then her little
rooms are just like a scene on a stage. If they were in New York
everybody would go to see them and to hear her talk."

This was such a new view of his home life to Philip that he could neither
combat it nor assent to it, further than to say, that his aunt was just
like everybody else, though she did have some peculiar ways.

"Well, she acts," Celia insisted, "and most people act. Our minister
acts all the time, mamma says." Celia had plenty of opinions of her own,
but when she ventured a startling statement she had the habit of going
under the shelter of "little mother," whose casual and unconsidered
remarks the girl turned to her own uses. Perhaps she would not have
understood that her mother merely meant that the minister's sacerdotal
character was not exactly his own character. Just as Philip noticed
without being able to explain it that his uncle was one sort of a man in
his religious exercises and observances and another sort of man in his
dealings with him. Children often have recondite thoughts that do not
get expression until their minds are more mature; they even accept
contradictory facts in their experience. There was one of the deacons
who was as kind as possible, and Philip believed was a good and pious
man, who had the reputation of being sharp and even tricky in a
horse-trade. And Philip used to think how lucky it was for him that
he had been converted and was saved!

"Are you going to stay here always?" asked Philip, pursuing his own train
of thought about the city.