book full of hard words, she tried her best to puzzle out from them
exactly what kind of little girl Elizabeth Ann really was.

There was one dream, however, that even conscientious Aunt Frances never
tried to analyze, because it was too sad. Elizabeth Ann dreamed
sometimes that she was dead and lay in a little white coffin with white
roses over her. Oh, that made Aunt Frances cry, and so did Elizabeth
Ann. It was very touching. Then, after a long, long time of talk and
tears and sobs and hugs, the little girl would begin to get drowsy, and
Aunt Frances would rock her to sleep in her arms, and lay her down ever
so quietly, and slip away to try to get a little nap herself before it
was time to get up.

At a quarter of nine every weekday morning Aunt Frances dropped whatever
else she was doing, took Elizabeth Ann's little, thin, white hand
protectingly in hers, and led her through the busy streets to the big
brick school-building where the little girl had always gone to school.
It was four stories high, and when all the classes were in session there
were six hundred children under that one roof. You can imagine, perhaps,
the noise there was on the playground just before school! Elizabeth Ann
shrank from it with all her soul, and clung more tightly than ever to
Aunt Frances's hand as she was led along through the crowded, shrieking
masses of children. Oh, how glad she was that she had Aunt Frances there
to take care of her, though as a matter of fact nobody noticed the
little thin girl at all, and her very own classmates would hardly have
known whether she came to school or not. Aunt Frances took her safely
through the ordeal of the playground, then up the long, broad stairs,
and pigeonholed her carefully in her own schoolroom. She was in the
third grade,--3A, you understand, which is almost the fourth.