Lorelei had hesitated a moment. She was plainly bothered.
"I thought Rio was river——?" she began, and stopped. Miss Amanda's face was red.
"Go to your seat," she said.
For what? How had Lorelei offended? The class had no idea.
Miss Amanda had shown steady disapproval of Lorelei before this, and this morning Sadie and Hattie knew why.
"A girl in a class upstairs told us," said Sadie. "Her name is Sally White and she lives near Lorelei. She says Miss Amanda lives next door to Lorelei and they play the piano at Lorelei's house all day Sunday with the windows wide open."
"Tunes," Sadie went on to qualify. "It isn't even as if it were hymns."
"Or voluntaries," said Hattie. Voluntaries were permitted at Hattie's church before service and Sadie did not approve of them.
Sadie was continuing. "Sally said the neighbors sent word to the Ritters that it was a thing a Christian neighborhood couldn't and wouldn't put up with, but the Ritters go right on playing."
This was more painful to Emmy Lou than Sadie could know. Papa who comes to see her once a month keeps the piano open on Sunday, and plays what Sadie and Hattie differentiate as "tunes" as opposed to hymns and voluntaries, often as not dashing into what he explains to Uncle Charlie is this or that from this or that new opera.