And then Emmy Lou had laughed because Aunt Cordelia did not know that The Frog and Jenny Wren and The Little Wee Bear were gone into the past, and The Green and Gold Book come to take their place.
The bell had rung at two o’clock. At three Tom came. Tom was the house-boy. He was suave and saddle-coloured and smiling. He had come for Emmy Lou.
Miss Lizzie looked at Emmy Lou. Emmy Lou looked straight ahead.
Then Miss Lizzie looked at Tom. Miss Lizzie could do a good deal with a look. Tom became uneasy, apologetic, guilty. Then he went. It took a good deal to wilt Tom.
At half-past three he knocked at the door again. He gave his message from outside the threshold this time. Emmy Lou must come home. Miss Cordelia said so. Emmy Lou’s papa had come.
Emmy Lou heard Papa—who came a hundred miles once a month to see her.
Would Emmy Lou say she was sorry? Emmy Lou was not sorry, she could not.
Miss Lizzie shut the door in Tom’s face.
Later Aunt Cordelia, bonnet on, returning from the school, explained to her brother-in-law.
Her brother-in-law regarded her thoughtfully through his eye-glasses. He was an editor, and had a mental habit of classifying people while they talked, and putting them away in pigeon-holes. While Aunt Cordelia talked he was putting her in a pigeon-hole marked “Guileless.”