a piece of old-maidism. Of course she was religious. She was really
very good. She was considered very high church. I do not think,
from my recollection of her, that she really was, or, indeed, that she
could have been; but she used to talk that way, and it was said that she was.
In fact, it used to be whispered that she was in danger 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.