had a broken-hearted look. She longed to run back and comfort it. In spite of her resolution, the tears came into her eyes; but Aunt Laura put a kid-gloved hand across Sal’s basket and caught Emily’s in a close, understanding squeeze.
“Oh, I just love you, Aunt Laura,” whispered Emily.
And Aunt Laura’s eyes were very, very blue and deep and kind.
Emily found the drive through the blossomy June world pleasant. Nobody talked much; even Saucy Sal had subsided into the silence of despair; now and then Cousin Jimmy made a remark, more to himself, as it seemed, than to anybody else. Sometimes Aunt Elizabeth answered it, sometimes not. She always spoke crisply and used no unnecessary words.
They stopped in Charlottetown and had dinner. Emily, who had had no appetite since her father’s death, could not eat the roast beef which the boarding-house waitress put before her. Whereupon Aunt Elizabeth whispered mysteriously to the waitress, who went away and presently returned with a plateful of delicate, cold chicken—fine white slices, beautifully trimmed with lettuce frills.
“Can you eat that?” said Aunt Elizabeth sternly, as to a culprit at the bar.
“I’ll—try,” whispered Emily.
She was too frightened just then to say more, but by the time she had forced down some of the chicken she had made up her small mind that a certain matter must be put right.
