"Pshaw," said Uncle Charlie, the brother of Mamma and the aunties, and wheeling about and whipping out his handkerchief he blew his nose violently.
"Brother!" said Aunt Katie reproachfully. Aunt Katie was younger than Mamma and almost as pretty.
"Brother Charlie!" said Aunt Louise who was the youngest of them all, even more reproachfully.
"Shall I send her to Sunday school at our church, or at your church?" said Aunt Cordelia, plump and comfortable, and next to Uncle Charlie in the family succession. For Papa's church was different, though Emmy Lou did not know this either—and when Mamma had elected to go with him there had been feeling.
"So she finds God's blessing, Sister Cordelia, what does it matter?" said Mamma a little piteously. "And she'll say her prayer every night and every morning to you?"
On reaching home, Aunt Cordelia spoke decidedly, "Precious baby! We'll give her her supper and put her right into her little bed. She's worn out with the strangeness of it all."
Aunt Cordelia was right. Emmy Lou was worn out and more, she was bewildered and terrified with the strangeness of it all. But though her flaxen head, shorn now of its brave three-cornered hat, fell forward well-nigh into her supper before more than a beginning was made, and though when carried upstairs by Uncle Charlie she yielded passively to Aunt Cordelia and Aunt Katie undressing her, too oblivious, as they deemed her, to be cognizant of where she was, they reckoned without knowing their Emmy Lou.
Her head came through the opening of the little gown slipped on her.
"Shall I say it now?" she asked.
"Her prayer. She hasn't forgotten, precious baby," said Aunt Cordelia and sat down. Aunt Katie who had been picking up little garments, melted into the shadows beyond the play and the flicker of the fire in the grate, and Emmy Lou, steadied by the hand of Aunt Cordelia, went down upon her knees.