She ought to have been pitifully spanked, but now that she had got things under way, there was scarcely time to reprove her. Emily remembered the days when Bob had complained that he could never get her alone long enough to "settle her." The house was bustling and hurrying about, as Martha used to make it stir, full of her girl friends coming and going, confused by committee women of inspired importance. School children were singing their parts at the piano; angels were adjusting their feathers in the hall; the 'phone was ringing. Emily watched Martha "putting it across," each day a little more naughtily, a little more triumphantly. She apparently intended to be as highly respected in the town as her deceitful mother. It was not pleasant, to say the least, to see her sitting deferring with studied docility to the opinion of women whom Emily knew she was scorning with all her might. Never before had she been quite such a "nice girl." She was demure; she was discreet; she gave someone else credit for every good idea she put forth quietly, graciously; she made her elderly neighbors smile at her mother as if to say "What a clever child this is of yours." And, when they left, she would hug her mother, grinning, chuckling. Thick as two thieves they were, together in conspiracy.
The only thing that seemed difficult to explain about Martha was the absence of admirers who had formerly beset her father round about. Johnnie, of course, had not come home from the East, but there were numbers of young collegians who had returned for Christmas. Why, Emily wondered, did they avoid the Kenworthy house? She understood one evening when she overheard a conversation between Greta and her daughter.
"I told Hally I was coming here. I asked him to come along, but he wouldn't." A giggle. "Do you know what he said about you, Martha?"
"What?" The tone was wholly indifferent.
"He said: 'No; I'm not going there. Martie's mad. She's taken to biting.'"
Then Martha's voice, full of interest, "Did he honestly say that?" She seemed gratified.
"Yes, honest he did."
"I didn't suppose he had that much sense," Martha said, simply.
Later: "But why? Tell me the truth, Martie! Why aren't you dancing?"
"I have told you the truth. I've learned my lesson; I can't stand late hours. I don't want another breakdown like that one last winter. I tell you I go to bed regularly early. I'm in bed every night at half past ten."