"No. Not exactly. But it's somebody. One of Papa's sisters--Aunt
Charlotte. You see. Mamma seems to think I'm rather like her."
"Does Aunt Charlotte read Kant and Hegel and Schopenhauer, to find out
whether the Thing-in-itself is mind or matter? Does she read Maudsley and
Ribot to find out what's the matter with her mind?"
"I don't think she ever read anything."
"What _did_ she do?"
"Well--she doesn't seem to have done much but fall in love with people."
"She'd have been a very abnormal lady if she'd never fallen in love at
all, Mary."
"Yes; but then she used to think people were in love with her when they
weren't."
"How old is Aunt Charlotte?"
"She must be ages over fifty now."
"Well, my dear, you're just twenty-eight, and I don't think you've been
in love yet."
"That's it. I have."
"No. You've only thought you were. Once? Twice, perhaps? You may have
been very near it--for ten minutes. But a man might be in love with you
for ten years, and you wouldn't be a bit the wiser, if he held his tongue
about it.... No. People don't go off their heads because their aunts do,
or we should all of us be mad. There's hardly a family that hasn't got
somebody with a tile loose."
"Then you don't think there's anything in it?"
"I don't think there's anything in it in your case. Anything at all."
"I'm glad I told you."