Just at this time Emmy Lou was having trouble of her own. It was Lent, which meant Church three times a week. Aunt Louise said Emmy Lou must go. She said Emmy Lou, being now a big girl, ought to want to go.
Rosalie, being High, had Church every afternoon. But Rosalie liked it. Emmy Lou feared she was the only one in all the class who did not like it.
Even Sadie must enjoy church. For one day she missed in every lesson and lost her temper and cried; next day she brought a note from her mamma, and then she told Emmy Lou about it; it asked that Sadie be excused for missing, for because of the Revival at her church, Sadie would be up late every night.
Mr. Bryan was in the room when Miss Fanny read this note. She handed it to him.
“To each year its evils, I suppose,” said Miss Fanny; “to the Primer its whooping-cough and measles, to the First Reader the shedding of its incisors. With the Fifth Reader comes the inoculation of doctrines. We are living the Ten Great Religions.”
Mr. Bryan laid the note down. He said he must caution Miss Fanny that, as Principal or as Teacher, neither he nor she had anything to do with the religions of the children intrusted to their care. And he must remind Miss Fanny that these problems of school life could not be met with levity. He hoped Miss Fanny would take this as he meant it, kindly.
The class listened breathlessly. Was Miss Fanny treating their religions with levity? What is levity?
It was Emmy Lou who asked the others when they sought to pin the accusation to Miss Fanny.
Mary Agatha looked it up in the Dictionary. Then she reported: “Lightness of conduct, want of weight, inconstancy, vanity, frivolity.” She told it off with low and accusing enunciation.
It sounded grave. Emmy Lou was troubled. Could Miss Fanny be all this? Could she be guilty of levity?