“Aunt Elizabeth,” she said.
“Hey, what?” said Aunt Elizabeth, directing her steel-blue eyes straight at her niece’s troubled ones.
“I would like you to understand,” said Emily, speaking very primly and precisely so that she would be sure to get things right, “that it was not because I did not like the roast beef I did not eat it. I was not hungry at all; and I just et some of the chicken to oblige you, not because I liked it any better.”
“Children should eat what is put before them and never turn up their noses at good, wholesome food,” said Aunt Elizabeth severely. So Emily felt that Aunt Elizabeth had not understood after all and she was unhappy about it.
After dinner Aunt Elizabeth announced to Aunt Laura that they would do some shopping.
“We must get some things for the child,” she said.
“Oh, please don’t call me ‘the child,’” exclaimed Emily. “It makes me feel as if I didn’t belong anywhere. Don’t you like my name, Aunt Elizabeth? Mother thought it so pretty. And I don’t need any ‘things.’ I have two whole sets of underclothes—only one is patched.——”
“S-s-sh!” said Cousin Jimmy, gently kicking Emily’s shins under the table.
Cousin Jimmy only meant that she would better let Aunt Elizabeth buy “things” for her when she was in the humour for it; but Emily thought he was rebuking her for mentioning such matters as underclothes and subsided in scarlet conviction. Aunt Elizabeth went on talking to Laura as if she had not heard.
“She must not wear that cheap black dress in Blair Water. You could sift oatmeal through it. It is nonsense expecting a child of ten to wear black at all. I shall get her a nice white dress with black sash for good, and some black-and-white-check gingham for school. Jimmy, we’ll leave the child with you. Look after her.”
