“Because the Catholics have to do just what their priests tell them to, haven’t they?”
“I don’t know—I don’t know anything about them. We are Presbyterians.”
Emily gave her head a little toss. Mrs. Kent was known to be an “English Church” woman and though Teddy went to the Presbyterian Sunday School, that fact gave him scanty standing among bred-in-the-bone Presbyterian circles.
“If your Aunt Elizabeth went to Father Cassidy at White Cross and asked him to stop Lofty John, maybe he’d do it,” persisted Teddy.
“Aunt Elizabeth would never do that,” said Emily positively. “I’m sure of it. She’s too proud.”
“Not even to save the bush?”
“Not even for that.”
“Then I guess nothing can be done,” said Teddy rather crest-fallen. “Look here—see what I’ve made. This is a picture of Lofty John in purgatory, with three little devils sticking red-hot pitch forks into him. I copied some of it out of one of mother’s books—Dante’s Infernal, I think it was—but I put Lofty John in place of the man in the book. You can have it.”
“I don’t want it.” Emily uncoiled her legs and got up. She was past the stage when inflicting imaginary torments on Lofty John could comfort her. She had already slain him in several agonizing ways during her night vigils. But an idea had come to her—a daring, breathless idea. “I must go home now, Teddy—it’s supper time.”
Teddy pocketed his despised sketch—which was really a wonderful bit of work if either of them had had the sense to know it; the expression of anguish in Lofty John’s face as a merry little devil touched him up with a pitchfork would have been the despair of many a trained artist. He went home wishing he could help Emily; it was all wrong that a creature like Emily—with soft purple-gray eyes and a smile that made you think of all sorts of wonderful things you couldn’t put into words—should be unhappy. Teddy felt so worried about it that he added a few more devils to his sketch of Lofty John in purgatory and lengthened the prongs of their pitchforks quite considerably.