fact.

"What?--not Aunt Pike?--to stay?" gasped Dan.

Emily nodded, a world of meaning in the action. "You'd best go up and
speak to her at once, or she'll be crosser than she is now, if that's
possible. She's as vexed as can be 'cause there wasn't nobody to the
station to meet her, nor nobody here when she come."

"But we didn't know. How could we? And who could have even dreamed of
her coming to-day!" they argued hotly and all at once.

"A tellygram come soon after you'd a-gone," said Emily, with a sniff;
"but there wasn't nobody here to open it. And how was we to know what
was inside of it; we can't see through envelopes, though to hear some
people talk you would think we ought to be able to."

Kitty knew it was her duty to check Emily's rude way of speaking of her
aunt, but a common trouble was uniting them, and she felt she could not
be severe then.

"Doesn't father know yet?" she asked.

"No, miss."

"Poor father! Has Aunt Pike really come to _stay_, Emily?"

"I can't make out for certain, miss; but if she isn't going to stay now,
she is coming later on. I gathered that much from the way she talked.
She said it didn't need a very clever person to see that 'twas high time