The woods of the plantation were as familiar and known to her as they were to Leon, and, unlike her brother, she had an inclination to privacy, which made her early wise in ways of quietness. They had often been near each other, with her observing him and him not knowing she was within a mile of him. And so one day curiosity made her follow—not Leon but Clovis—to the woods and to discover her with Leon, the two of them naked and behaving like hogs in a muddy pen.

It did not occur to her to tell anyone. She had no feelings of human behavior’s being moral or not. She only knew what she instinctively approved and what she did not. She did not approve of her brother.

She had never liked him. She had been troubled by his smell without knowing it was his in the cradle she had succeeded to. This early aversion was merely the foundation of her feeling about male things in general. The brusque, graceless way male creatures moved about—those additional things of theirs hanging loose were untidy and unnatural, she thought.

The Sunday they all went into Highboro to church and then to Aunt Nell’s, she had ignored Leon, keeping to the opposite seat of the carriage on the way, although she liked to move about and pay close attention to the passing view. When conversation between her mother and father grew lively and she feared some effort might be made to draw her into it, she opened her Bible and pretended to read and ponder on a passage, she who had no interest in the Bible. She had, however, long ago learned the practical use to which it might be put. Seldom, if ever, will one sitting with a Bible open and seeming to read it be interrupted.

She had seen her brother and the girl Clovis and despised them for what they did. Her disgust on the occasion did not strike her as excessive, even though she knew from observation that the behavior she had witnessed was not uncommon, and she had heard that it was necessary in order to continue all animal species.