At first Emmy Lou did not understand. For Miss Lizzie promptly seated all the would-be mates as far apart as possible.
Emmy Lou thought about it. It seemed as though Miss Lizzie did it to be mean.
Then Emmy Lou’s cheeks grew hot. She put the thought quickly away that she might forget it; but the wedge was entered. Teachers were no longer infallible. Emmy Lou had questioned the motives of pedagogic deism.
And so Emmy Lou and Hattie were separated. But there were three new little girls near Emmy Lou. Their kid button-shoes had tassels. Very few little girls had button-shoes. Button-shoes were new. Emmy Lou had button-shoes. She was proud of them. But they did not have tassels.
The three new little girls looked amused at everything, and exchanged glances; but they were not mean glances—not the kind of glances when little girls nudge each other and go off to whisper. Emmy Lou liked the new little girls. She could not keep from looking at them. They spread their skirts so easily when they sat down. There was something alluring about the little girls.
At recess Emmy Lou waited near the door for them. They all went out together. After that they were friends. They lived on Emmy Lou’s square. It was strange. But they had just come there to live. That explained it.
“In the white house, the white house with the big yard,” the tallest of the little girls explained. She was Alice. The others were her cousins. They were Rosalie and Amanthus. Such charming names.
Emmy Lou was glad that she lived in the other white house on the square with the next biggest yard. She never had thought of it before, but now she was glad.
Alice talked and Amanthus shook her curls back off her shoulders, and Rosalie wore a little blue locket hung on a golden chain. And Rosalie laughed.
“Isn’t it funny and dear?” asked Alice.