"Aunt Caroline!" she repeated.
"Yes," said Miss Herrick; but still her pen travelled swiftly across the page. It was provoking to be interrupted.
"I TELL YOU I AM NOT ILL, AUNT CAROLINE," CRIED ELIZABETH.
"Aunt Caroline!" said Elizabeth for the third time.
"What is it, Elizabeth?" said her aunt, at last laying down her pen. "I hear you, and I have answered. Don't stand there repeating my name like a parrot. Why are you not in bed?"
"Because I have something to tell you. I could not go to bed. I—I have something to tell you."
"So it appears. Suppose you tell me now, instead of this endless repetition. Come, I have no time to waste."
"Aunt Caroline," said Elizabeth, drawing nearer, and standing with her hands clasped behind her back, as she did when she had anything of importance to say, "Val is here."
"Val? What Val? What do you mean?"