"What did they say?"
Again Mrs. Gano threw back her head.
"Ethan had been coming here. We had his room all ready for him, and Valeria had bought pink wax-candles for his dressing-table—a most unnecessary extravagance for a boy, as I told her. And as for Jerusha, she wasted half her mornings brightening up Ethan's knocker on the front door, and the rest of the time she was making cinnamon rolls. And, after all—humph!" she said, with something rather near to a snort.
"Then those Tallmadges wrote, didn't they?" said Emmie, gently applying the spur.
"Ho, yes, the Tallmadges wrote. The children were heart-broken at the idea of separating, and so they had to let Ethan go to Neuilly with the De Poincy boy."
"To improve his accent!" added Emmie, with borrowed scorn.
"Oh yes; I admitted in my reply that Ethan's accent was no doubt again in need of improvement, but it had not been necessary to send him so far afield as France."
"How long did he stay?" asked Val.
"Three years. He came back the summer you were born. He was nearly ten."
"Well, it's a good thing he came back. He does look a gump in those French clo's—I mean"—Val caught herself up hurriedly, seeing how unpopular the observation was—"I mean, I like him best in proper American things. This last picture's scrumptious!"