told her it was Heaven, in no wise confused Emmy Lou,
because, for aught she knew, South and Heaven and much else might be
included in these points of the compass. Ever since then Emmy Lou had
lived with the three aunties and the uncle; and papa had been coming a
hundred miles once a month to see her.

When Emmy Lou went back to school for the second year, she was told that
she was now in the First Reader. If her heart had jumped at the sharp
accents of Miss Clara, it now grew still within her at the slow, awful
enunciation of the Large Lady in black bombazine who reigned over the
department of the First Reader, pointing her morals with a heavy
forefinger, before which Emmy Lou's eyes lowered with every aspect of
conscious guilt. Nor did Emmy Lou dream that the Large Lady, whose black
bombazine was the visible sign of a loss by death that had made it
necessary for her to enter the school-room to earn a living, was finding
the duties incident to the First Reader almost as strange and perplexing
as Emmy Lou herself.

Emmy Lou from the first day found herself descending steadily to the
foot of the class; and there she remained until the awful day, at the
close of the first week, when the Large Lady, realizing perhaps that she
could no longer ignore such adherence to that lowly position, made
discovery that while to Emmy Lou "d-o-g" might _spell_ "dog" and
"f-r-o-g" might _spell_ "frog," Emmy Lou could not find either on a
printed page, and, further, could not tell wherein they differed when
found for her, that, also, Emmy Lou made her figure 8's by adding one
uncertain little o to the top of another uncertain little o; and that
while Emmy Lou might copy, in smeary columns, certain cabalistic signs
off the blackboard, she could not point them off in tens, hundreds,
thousands, or read their numerical values, to save her little life. The
Large Lady, sorely perplexed within herself as to the proper course to
be pursued, in the sight of the fifty-nine other First-Readers pointed a
condemning forefinger at the miserable little object standing in front
of her platform: and said, "You will stay after school, Emma Louise,
that I may examine further into your qualifications for this grade."

[Illustration: "Sounds grew fewer, fainter, farther away ... a door
slammed somewhere--then--silence."]

Now Emmy Lou had no idea what it meant--"examine further into your
qualifications for this grade." It might be the form of punishment in