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This arrangement gave my revered relative ample warrant for looking closely into my household affairs and reproving me for everything she did and didn’t discover; it was her duty to know all about a place where dear Caroline spent so much of her time. And when Caro departed from Cousin Jane’s ideals, as she did with every movement of body and mind, it was a great relief to my pious cousin to be able publicly to disavow all responsibility for the child’s shortcomings. What, as she constantly inquired, could one expect of Caroline when that scatter-brained Lyddy would persist in encouraging the child in her flightiness? She published abroad her own powerlessness to control either Caro or the situation, and openly washed her hands of the consequences.

Caro and I bore up as best we could, and the Peon and David stood by us nobly. David, indeed, was ready to fight his idol’s battles with Cousin Jane herself. In fact, he grew up with a lack of respect for that excellent lady which tempted her to assume the role of a prophet, in which capacity she dwelt at large on the penitentiary as David’s ultimate place of residence. Caro always responded to these prognostications that, if Davy went to the penimtentium, she would go, too, as soon as she was big enough, and keep house for him, and make the cook give them ice-cream every day that came. And so the matter rested.