She went through the dining-room, into the hall, and called upstairs,
"Aunt Hetty! Aunt Hetty!" She was almost crying she felt so sorry for
herself.

"Yis," came back a faint voice, very thin and high, the way old people's
voices sounded when they tried to call loud. "Up in the east-wing
garret."

She mounted the stairs heavily, pulling herself along by those spindling
old red balustrades, just like so many old laths, noticing that her
rubber boots left big hunks of mud on the white-painted stairs, but too
miserable to care.

The door to the east-wing garret was open. Aunt Hetty was there, bossing
Agnes, and they were both "dudsing," as Elly called it to herself,
leaning over trunks, disappearing in and out of closets, turning inside
out old bags of truck, sorting over, and, for all Elly could see,
putting the old duds back again, just where they had been before.
Grown-ups did seem to run round in circles, so much of their time!

She sat down wearily on an ugly little old trunk near the door. Aunt
Hetty shut up a drawer in a dresser, turned to Elly, and said, "Mercy,
child, what's the matter? Has the teacher been scolding you?"

"No, Aunt Hetty," said Elly faintly, looking out of the window.

"Anybody sick at your house?" asked Aunt Hetty, coming towards the
little girl.