Miss Jethro started.

Emily looked at her for the first time, with eyes that betrayed a
feeling of distrust. "What have I said to startle you?" she
asked.

"Nothing! I am nervous in stormy weather--don't notice me." She
went on abruptly with her inquiries. "Will you tell me the date
of your father's death?"

"The date was the thirtieth of September, nearly four years
since."

She waited, after that reply.

Miss Jethro was silent.

"And this," Emily continued, "is the thirtieth of June, eighteen
hundred and eighty-one. You can now judge for yourself. Did you
know my father?"

Miss Jethro answered mechanically, using the same words.

"I did know your father."

Emily's feeling of distrust was not set at rest. "I never heard
him speak of you," she said.

In her younger days the teacher must have been a handsome woman.