‘How do you mean?’ asked Kitty, eagerly.
‘Why, what I have just been saying,’ replied Emmeline. ‘Here are we, three orphans, left to the care of a worldly aunt——’
‘But are you quite sure she’s worldly?’ asked Kitty, looking alarmed. Kitty was not altogether clear what ‘worldly’ meant, but from the way Emmeline pronounced the word it sounded like something very bad.
‘I’m afraid so,’ said Emmeline. ‘I remember once, when mother and I spent a night with her in London, and she and her friend kept talking about a ball they had just been to.’
‘But balls aren’t wrong, are they?’ asked Kitty. Emmeline was twelve, and Kitty regarded as a great authority on all questions of morals.
‘I don’t know that they’re exactly wrong,’ acknowledged Emmeline, ‘but they are a great waste of time. When I’m grown up I never mean to go to them, but shall spend all my time working for the poor. Besides, it isn’t only her going to balls that makes me think Aunt Grace worldly, but the way she dresses and—everything. I quite expect that when we know more of her we shall find her just like one of the fine ladies one reads of in books.’
‘Will she be cruel to us, do you suppose?’ asked Kitty with zest. She did not really believe that merry, good-natured Aunt Grace could be cruel, any more than she really, at the bottom of her heart, believed in a romance of Micky’s about a certain blood-thirsty burglar who lived in the spare-room wardrobe, but it made life more exciting to pretend to herself that she did.
‘Of course not. What a silly question, Kitty!’ exclaimed Emmeline impatiently. ‘I dare say she will be too busy with parties and so on to bother herself much about us, but she’ll be quite kind—at least, to us. Punch is the only one I feel at all doubtful about.’ She flung herself down on to the hearthrug, and rested her head against that of a fox-terrier who was lying there half asleep, and who gave a little growl of remonstrance at being disturbed. ‘We hadn’t got him when she was here last, you see, so we can’t tell what she’ll think of him. I shouldn’t a bit wonder if she didn’t let us bring him to Woodsleigh, or even if she does, she’ll keep him chained up all day, poor darling! People who think much about clothes never do like dogs, except just silly little toy things.’
Micky and Kitty broke out together in a chorus of indignation and horror.
‘If they are so horrid as to chain Punch up in the kennel all day I shall jolly well stay out with him and keep him company!’ shouted Micky.