Emmie looked bewildered, as well she might.
"I've got a little rocking-chair down in gamma's room—used to be cousin Efan's."
"Humph! rocking-chair's just the thing for you! Why don't you go and sit in it?"
Val was clearing out the bureau now at the other end of the room. It was Emmie's things this time that were being flung out with disdain. Val's harsh question, coupled with the moving spectacle of Emmie's best hat on the floor, brought ready tears to the soft brown eyes.
"What you got in this?" demanded Val, shaking the rattling contents of a well tied-up box.
"B'longs to cousin Efan. Gamma don't let us open it."
Val untied the cord and revealed the forbidden spoil—marbles, a jack-knife, a broken whistle, and at the bottom a little drawing-book and a French grammar.
"I'll take care of the marbles and the knife for cousin Ethan," said Val, "but you can have the other things," and she flung the treasured box to the opposite side of the room. The vandalism widened Emmie's trouble-clouded eyes. "Now my clothes are going in the bureau."
Val was sorting and folding away her own belongings with a deftness characteristic of her thin little hands. Emmie watched the process tearfully.
"And my books and things like that go on this side," she went on, busily bringing order out of chaos. "Now, do you understand?" she said, sternly. "This half o' the room is mine. You can't ever come here."