nd a most unhappy one for the sisters. More than
once Aunt Sharley seemed on the point of saying something, but she, too,
held her tongue until they had risen up from their places. From within
the passageway leading to the rear porch she spoke then across the
threshold of the door at the back end of the dining room.

"You, nur nobody else, can't turn me out of dis house," she warned them,
and in her words was the dead weight of finality. "An' ef you does, I
ain't gwine leave de premises. Ise gwine camp right dere on de sidewalk
an' dere I means to stay twell de policemens teks me up fur a vagrom. De
shame of it won't be no greater fur me 'n 'tis fur you. Dat's all!" And
with that she was gone before they could answer, if indeed they had any
answer to make.

It was the next day that the _Daily Evening News_ announced the
engagement and the date of the marriage, which would follow within four
weeks. Congratulations in number were bestowed upon Emmy Lou; they came
by telephone and in letters from former schoolmates, but mainly they
came by word of mouth from townspeople who trooped in to say the things
which people always say on such occasions--such things, for example, as
that young Mr. Winslow should count himself a lucky man and that Emmy
Lou would make a lovely bride; that he should be the proudest young man
in the Union and she the happiest girl in the state, and all the rest of
it. Under this outpouring of kindly words from kindly folk the recipient
was radiant enough to all appearances, which was a tribute to her powers
as an actress. Beneath the streams of her happiness coursed sombre
undercurrents of distress and perplexity, roiling the waters of her joy
and her pride.

For nearly a week, with no outsider becoming privy to the facts, she
endured a situation which daily was marked by harassing experiences and
which hourly became more intolerable. Then, in despair, seeing no way
out at all, she went to a certain old white house out on Clay Street to
confide in one to whom many another had turned, seeking counsel in the
time of trouble. She went to see Judge William Pitman Priest, and she
went alone, telling no one, not even Mildred, of the errand upon which
she was bound.

The wide front porch was empty where the old Judge spent most of his
leisure hours when the weather suited, and knowing as she did the custom
of the house, and being, for a fact, almost as much at home beneath its
roof as beneath her own, Emmy