and was always ready to take our side and to further our plans
in any way whatever. We would get her to steal off with us,
and translate our Latin for us by the fire. This, of course, made us
rather fond of her. She was so much inclined to take our part and to help us
that I remember it used to be said of her as a sort of reproach,
"Cousin Fanny always sides with the boys." She used to say it was because
she knew how worthless women were. She would say this sort of thing herself,
but she was very touchy about women, and never would allow any one else
to say anything about them. She had an old maid's temper. I remember that
she took Doug up short once for talking about "old maids". She said that
for her part she did not mind it the least bit; but she would not allow him
to speak so of a large class of her sex which contained some of the best women
in the world; that many of them performed work and made sacrifices that
the rest of the world knew nothing about. She said the true word for them
was the old Saxon term "spinster"; that it proved that they performed
the work of the house, and that it was a term of honor of which she was proud.
She said that Christ had humbled himself to be born of a Virgin, and that
every woman had this honor to sustain. Of course such lectures as that
made us call her an old maid all the more. Still, I don't think
that being mischievous or teasing her made any difference with her.
Frank used to worry her more than any one else, even than Joe,
and I am sure she liked him best of all. That may perhaps have been
because he was the best-looking of us. She said once that he reminded her
of some one she used to know a long time before, when she was young.
That must have been a long time before, indeed. He used to
tease the life out of her.

She was extraordinarily credulous -- would believe anything on earth
anyone told her, because, although she had plenty of humor,
she herself never would deviate from the absolute truth a moment,