Grandmother called imperiously, but there was no answer. "Rosemary!" she cried, shrilly.
"She ain't here, Ma," said Matilda. "I reckon she's gone out somewheres."
"Did you ever see the beat of it? She's getting high and mighty all of a sudden. This makes twice lately that she's gone out without even tellin' us, let alone askin' whether she could go or not. Just wait till she comes back."
Matilda laughed in her most aggravating manner. "I reckon we'll have to wait," she retorted, "as long as we don't know where she's gone or when she's comin' back."
"Just wait," repeated Grandmother, ominously. "I'll tell her a thing or two. You just see if I don't!"
The fires of her wrath smouldered dully, ready to blaze forth at any moment. Matilda waited with the same sort of pleasurable excitement which impels a child to wait under the open window of a house in which there is good reason to believe that an erring playmate is about to receive punishment.
Tense Silence
"What's she been doin' all day?" Grandmother demanded.
"Nothin' more than usual, I guess," Matilda replied. "She did up the work this morning and got dinner, and washed the dishes and went to the store, and when she come back, she was up in the attic for a spell, and then she went out without sayin' where she was goin'."
"In the attic? What was she doin' in the attic?"