"Of course, you've heard everything!" she sighed.
"What's the 'queer feeling'?"
"Well, if I've heard and thought a great deal about some one, and if they sing wonderfully, or if they write beautiful songs, and travel and do interesting things, I feel—not so much that I want to meet them as that it would be nice for them to meet me. No, you aren't taking it the way I mean. It's that I know I should appreciate them, and it must be rather nice to be awfully appreciated, even if it's Patti or you. Of course you go about meeting all kinds of people, but there aren't many among them that take such an interest as I do, that know all about you when you were little, how you blacked yourself all over in the attic and brought down the door-knocker; about the Tallmadges and Henri de Poincy, and all your photographs and letters to grandma. Naturally, nobody could take such an interest in you as your own cousin, and it used to seem such a waste that you shouldn't know us."
"I quite agree; it would have been losing a golden opportunity."
"Oh, here she is!" said Emmie, putting in her head. "I told grandma you'd gone to the party."
"No, I'm not going. It's cold; shut the door."
Emmie was proceeding to perform this operation on the inside when Mrs. Gano called "Val." With a gesture of impatience the girl got up and went out. Mrs. Gano was standing on the threshold of the long room.
"You'll be very late for the party."
"I'm not going."
"Why not?"