Doubtless it had never been true of Aunt Bell at any time in her life, but she was nettled now: one must present frowning fortifications at a point where one is attacked, even if they be only of pasteboard.

Then, too, a random claim to possess hidden fruits of observation is often productive.

Much reticence goes down before it.
Nancy turned to her again with a kind of relief in her face.
"Oh, Aunt Bell, I was sure of it--I couldn't tell you, but I was sure you must see!" Her pen was thrown aside and she drooped in her chair, her hands listless in her lap.
Aunt Bell looked sympathetically voluble but wisely refrained from speech.
"I wonder," continued the girl, "if you knew at the time, the time when my eyes seemed to open--when I was deceived by his pretension into thinking--you remember that first sermon, Aunt Bell--how independent and noble I thought it was going to be.

Oh, Aunt Bell--what a slump in my faith that day! I think its foundations all went, and then naturally the rest of it just seemed to topple.

Did you realise it all the time ?" So it was religious doubt--a loss of faith--heterodoxy?
Having listened until she gathered this much, Aunt Bell broke in--"My dear, you must let me guide you in this.