"Says what?" Aunt Victoria exclaimed, sitting bolt upright in her horror. "What does she mean by such an expression?"
"Oh, she just means stories like Joseph and Potiphar's wife, David and Bathsheba, Susanna and the elders."
"My dear child!" Aunt Victoria gasped.
"Well, Aunt Victoria, they're all in the Bible, at least Susanna and the elders isn't. That's in the Apocrypha."
Aunt Victoria sat silent a considerable time. At last she said solemnly: "Beth, I want you to promise me one thing solemnly, and that is that all your life long, whatever may be before you, whatever it may be your lot to learn, you will pray to God to preserve your purity."
"What is purity?" said Beth.
Aunt Victoria hesitated: "It's a condition of the mind which keeps us from ever doing or saying anything we should be ashamed of," she finally decided.
"But what kind of things?" Beth asked.
Unfortunately Aunt Victoria was not equal to the occasion. She blinked her eyes very hard, sipped some tea, and left Beth to find out for herself, according to custom.
"We must only talk about nice things," she said.