It took her some time to make out which was the northeast corner; when at last she identified it, all that appeared from under the carpet was a similar bit of paper with another mysterious inscription,—
"S. W. corner of room, under edge of carpet. Search rewarded."
The reward of search in this instance was a long narrow parcel containing two brand-new hair-pins and a single line of writing,—
"Behind looking-glass on bureau."
Highly diverted, Emmy hastened to tip the glass, and there, stored away behind it, she beheld a small white jam-pot. A label tucked in between lid and jar said succinctly,—
"Plum jam at bedtime eaten with a hair-pin is goloptious! Try it!"
All these jokes and surprises raised Emmy's spirits so that she ran down-stairs quite gleefully. But there things went wrong again. Aunt Emma was deep in household accounts. She nodded kindly to Emmy and said a few pleasant words; then she became absorbed in her reckonings and forgot her for the moment. Emmy was by no means one of those children who can be trusted to entertain themselves in the room where any one else is sitting. She was too self-conscious, too apt to imagine that people were criticising what she did or said. She wanted to ramble about the house and identify the things and places she had heard described, and if she had done this simply and naturally as Jean would, or Bess, no one would have been disturbed, least of all Aunt Emma. But a sense of shy awkwardness prevented, and what she did was to wait till her aunt was in the very middle of a long column of figures, and then say timidly,—
"Aunt Emma, may I—may I—go into the dining-room?"
Mrs. Elliott stopped, lost her count, and after trying in vain to recover it, said with a little natural impatience,—
"My dear, never interrupt any one who is adding up a sum, if you can help it. You have lost me all my last ten minutes' work. What did you say? go into the dining-room? why, of course, go just where you like." Then she began to cipher again.