Of course this translation helped us as well as gratified her.
I do not remember that she was ever too unwell to help us in this way
except when she was actually in bed. She was very fond of us boys,
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.
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