She had other news. "I asked Lorelei Ritter yesterday after school if she was a Bohemian and she got mad. She said no, she wasn't, she was a Bavarian."
Aunt Louise spoke to Aunt Cordelia that night. "Emmy Lou must decide in the next day or two if she is going to enter the confirmation class this year; I have to report for her."
The next day was Sunday, and Emmy Lou heard Papa humming and singing in his room as he dressed, Fra Diavolo the burden of it.
The chimes at Sadie's church two squares away, were playing,
"How beauteous are their feet
Who stand on Zion's hill,
Who bring salvation on their tongues
And words of peace reveal!"
From afar the triple bells of St. Simeon's flung their call on the morning air. Nor Methodist nor yet Episcopalian would be singing Fra Diavolo on Sunday morning as he dressed. What was Papa?
What was he? As he and Emmy Lou went down the stairs together to breakfast, she caught his hand to her cheek in a sudden passion of adoring. What Papa was, she would be!
She hurried from Sunday school around to Hattie's church on Swayne Street. Hattie defended the absence of a bell by saying they didn't need a bell to tell them when to go to church; they knew and went.
It was a brick church, long built, and a trifle mossy as to its foundations, discreet in its architecture, and well-kept.
Hattie was waiting for Emmy Lou at the door. Her very hair-ribbons, a serviceable brown, exact and orderly, seemed to stand for steadiness and reliability in conviction.