“I am sorry to say, Emily, that I have been hearing some very bad things about your behaviour in school to-day,” said Aunt Elizabeth.
“No, I don’t think you are sorry,” said Emily, gravely.
Now that the crisis had come she found herself able to confront it coolly—nay, more, to take a curious interest in it under all her secret fear and shame, as if some part of her had detached itself from the rest and was interestedly absorbing impressions and analyzing motives and describing settings. She felt that when she wrote about this scene later on she must not forget to describe the odd shadows the candle under Aunt Elizabeth’s nose cast upward on her face, producing a rather skeletonic effect. As for Miss Brownell, could she ever have been a baby—a dimpled, fat, laughing baby? The thing was unbelievable.
“Don’t speak impertinently to me,” said Aunt Elizabeth.
“You see,” said Miss Brownell, significantly.
“I don’t mean to be impertinent, but you are not sorry,” persisted Emily. “You are angry because you think I have disgraced New Moon, but you are a little glad that you have got some one to agree with you that I’m bad.”
“What a grateful child,” said Miss Brownell—flashing her eyes up at the ceiling—where they encountered a surprising sight. Perry Miller’s head—and no more of him—was stuck down out of the “black hole” and on Perry Miller’s upside-down face was a most disrespectful and impish grimace. Face and head disappeared in a flash, leaving Miss Brownell staring foolishly at the ceiling.
“You have been behaving disgracefully in school,” said Aunt Elizabeth, who had not seen this by-play. “I am ashamed of you.”
“It was not as bad as that, Aunt Elizabeth,” said Emily steadily. “You see it was this way—”