Yet, when Emily went to the playhouse next morning, bent on retrieving her share of broken dishes and boards, there was Ilse, skipping around, hard at work, with all the shelves back in place, the moss garden re-made, and a beautiful parlour laid out and connected with the living-room by a spruce arch.
“Hello, you. Here’s your parlour and I hope you’ll be satisfied now,” she said gaily. “What’s kept you so long? I thought you were never coming.”
This rather posed Emily after her tragic night, wherein she had buried her second friendship and wept over its grave. She was not prepared for so speedy a resurrection. As far as Ilse was concerned it seemed as if no quarrel had ever taken place.
“Why, that was yesterday,” she said in amazement, when Emily, rather distantly, referred to it. Yesterday and to-day were two entirely different things in Ilse’s philosophy. Emily accepted it—she found she had to. Ilse, it transpired, could no more help flying into tantrums now and then than she could help being jolly and affectionate between them. What amazed Emily, in whom things were bound to rankle for a time, was the way in which Ilse appeared to forget a quarrel the moment it was over. To be called a serpent and a crocodile one minute and hugged and darling-ed the next was somewhat disconcerting until time and experience took the edge off it.
“Aren’t I nice enough between times to make up for it?” demanded Ilse. “Dot Payne never flies into tempers, but would you like her for a chum?”
“No, she’s too stupid,” admitted Emily.
“And Rhoda Stuart is never out of temper, but you got enough of her. Do you think I’d ever treat you as she did?”
No, Emily had no doubt on this point. Whatever Ilse was or was not, she was loyal and true.
And certainly Rhoda Stuart and Dot Payne compared to Ilse were “as moonlight unto sunlight and as water unto wine”—or would have been if Emily had as yet known anything more of her Tennyson than the Bugle Song.
“You can’t have everything,” said Ilse. “I’ve got Dad’s temper and that’s all there is to it. Wait till you see him in one of his rages.”