"You need not have displayed your liking for them in quite this way,"
objected Aunt Euphemia. "You could easily have excused yourself--the
uncertainty about your poor father would have been reason enough. I
don't know--I am not sure, indeed, but that we should go into mourning.
Of course, it would spoil the summer----"
"Oh! Aunt Euphemia!"
"Yes. Well, I only mentioned it. For my own part I look extremely
well in crepe."
Louise was shocked by this speech; yet she knew that its apparent
heartlessness did not really denote the state of her aunt's mind. It
was merely bred of the lady's shallowness, and of her utterly
self-centered existence.
That evening, long after supper and after the store lights were out,
and while Cap'n Amazon and Louise were sitting as usual in the room
behind the store, a hasty step on the porch and a rat-tat-tat upon the
side door announced a caller than whom none could have been more
unexpected.
"Aunt Euphemia!" cried Louise, when the master mariner ushered the lady
in. "What has happened?"
"Haven't you heard? Did you not get a letter?" demanded Mrs.
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