She must have been about fifty-nine
in the spring of 1912, and was beginning to "soigner son salut,"
that is to say to take stock of her past life, apologize for it to
herself and see how she could atone reasonably for what she had done
wrong. A decade or two earlier she would have turned to religion,
inevitably to that most attractive and logical form, the religion
expounded by the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church. She would
have confessed her past, slightly or very considerably _gazee_, to
some indulgent confessor, have been pardoned, and have presented a
handsome sum to an ecclesiastical charity or work of piety. But she
had survived into a skeptical age and she had conceived an immense
respect for her clever daughter. Vivie should be her spiritual
director; and Vivie's idea put before her at their reconciliation
three years previously had seemed the most practical way of making
amends to Woman for having made money in the past out of the
economic and physiological weakness of women. She had fined herself
Ten Thousand pounds then; and out of her remaining capital of Fifty
or Sixty thousand (all willed with what else she possessed to her
daughter) she would pay over more if Vivie demanded it as further
reparation. Still, she found the frequentation of churches soothing
and gave much and often to the mildly beseeching Little Sisters of
the Poor when they made their rounds in town or suburbs.
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