Nobody, from Val's point of view, could care much about what Jerusha and Venie thought, but her grandmother's good opinion was somehow, even at this stage, a secretly coveted honor. Yet there was no blinking the fact Emmie was her pet. This form of putting the hard underlying fact was the more satisfactory in that one could as soon imagine Mrs. Gano dancing the Highland fling as having a pet. Gran'ma! who wouldn't let a dog or even a bird into the house, and whom no one could fancy nursing or caressing anything on earth! There was a suggestion of the ludicrous, a faint ironic aroma, in the phrase, which aroused angry passions. It fitted in, too, with all manner of exigencies. In any event it was apposite to remark, "Of course Emmie's the pet." This could be said with such effect of scorn that Emmie found no refuge save in tears.
"What's the matter?" inquired Mrs. Gano.
She had happened on the twain as they were loitering in the hall before going off to church.
Emmie wept on. Val set her little red mouth doggedly. Her grandmother glared.
"Now what have you been doing to this poor child?" she demanded.
Gran'ma's eyes were very strange when she was angry, as Val had frequently confided to the cobwebs in the wood-shed—unlike anybody's on earth—piercing, glittery; made you cold down your back. Servants shook and scuttled when she looked at them like that. Val herself was always reminded of
"Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,"
and braced herself by saying, internally: "I ain't 'fraid o' tigers and I ain't 'fraid o' gran'ma"—this, too, with a fine sense of climax.