She showed me Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Scarlet Letter.”
“What made you take this out of the shelves?”
“The title,” she replied, simply. “I am so fond of red things; but I should not like that great red ‘A’.”
“Those were days,” said I, “when people thought they could only be good by being very cruel.”
“They would have been more cruel if Hester had not loved the minister,” said Carlotta, looking at me wistfully.
“My dear little girl,” said I, seeing whither her thoughts were tending, “do not bother your brain with psychological problems.”
“What are—?” began Carlotta.
I pinched the question, as it were, out of her cheek and smiled and took away the book.
“They are a dreadful disease my little girl has been afflicted with for some time. When you sit and wrinkle your forehead like this,” and I scowled forbiddingly, whereat Carlotta laughed, “you are suffering from acute psychological problem.”
“Then I am thinking,” said Carlotta, reflectively.