Should an Emily Louise then turn traitor to her father, or should she desert an Aunt Cordelia and an Aunt Louise?
Life is complex. At twelve a pucker of absorption and concentration begins to gather between the brows.
On the homeward way, William was waiting at the corner. “What is a person when they are not either Democrat or Republican?” Emily Louise asked as they went along.
William’s tones were uncompromising. “A mugwump,” he said, and he said it with contempt.
It sounded unpleasant, and as though it ought to merit the contempt of William.
And grammar was becoming as complex as life itself. One forenoon Emily Louise was called upon to recite the rule. Every day it was a different rule, which in itself was discouraging. But the exceptions were worse than the rule; for a rule is a matter of a mere paragraph, while the exceptions are measurable by pages.
But Emily Louise knew the rule. Even with town one background for flag and bunting; even with the streets one festive processional; even with the advent, in her city, of the President of the United States on his tour of the South; even with this in her civic precincts, Emily Louise, arising, was able correctly to recite the rule.
“An article should only be used once before a complex description of one and the same object.”
“An example,” said Miss Amanda.
Emily Louise stood perplexed, for none had been given in the book.