"Who is the man?" Emmy Lou wanted to know.
"The anxious pilgrim of all time," said Uncle Charlie.
But Aunt Cordelia, taking Emmy Lou on her lap, explained. "The man is any one of us—you, me, Uncle Charlie, your little friends Maud and Albert Eddie down at the corner, everybody. If we meet our lions as we should, with courage and the truth, they, nor anything, can prevent our going right onward."
"Oh, let the pilgrims, let the pilgrims then,
Be vigilant and quit themselves like men!"
said Uncle Charlie.
And now laughter has become a lion in Emmy Lou's path. Will Hattie, her new friend, laugh at her? One can refrain from showing one's heart to Aunt Katie and Aunt Louise, but in the world of school Emmy Lou needs a friend.
Omniscience at home is strangely wanting about this world of school, perhaps because Emmy Lou's aunties in their days went to establishments such as Mr. Parson's Select Academy, where the pupil is the thing, and school and teachers even a bit unduly glad to have and hold her, whereas Emmy Lou at her school has not found herself in the least the thing.
In saying she was to sit with Hattie she was implying that she was grateful indeed for the overture, whereas Aunt Katie and Aunt Louise, taking it the other way, ask who Hattie is and where she comes from.
Aunt Katie said more: "We must find out something about her. Suppose you try?"
But Emmy Lou in one short day has divined all she needs to know, though she does not know how to tell this to Aunt Katie. Hattie is Hattie, life a foe to be overcome, this world the lists, and Hattie the challenged, her colors lowered or surrendered never, though the lance of her spirit be shivered seventy times seven and her helmet of conviction splintered.