r eyebrows
jerked, the left one leaping up above the right; she thrust out her chin
at you and her long, inquiring nose. Her thin face was the play of
agitated nerve-strings that pulled it thus into perpetual, restless
movements; and she made vague gestures with her large, bony hands. Her
tongue went tick-tack, like a clock. Anthony said you-could hear Emmy's
tongue striking the roof of her-mouth all thee time.

"And putting those delphiniums all together like that--Massing the
blues. Anthony? I _do_ think Anthony has perfect taste. I adore
delphiniums."

Auntie Emmy was behaving as if neither Michael nor Baby John was there.

"Don't you think John-John's too beautiful for words?" said Frances.
"Don't you like him a little bit too?"

Auntie Emmy winced as if Frances had flicked something in her face.

"Of course I like him too. Why shouldn't I?"

"I don't think you _do_, Auntie Emmy," Michael said.

Auntie Emmy considered him as for the first time.

"What do you know about it?" she said.

"I can tell by the funny things your face does."

"I thought," said Frances, "you wanted to play by yourself."

"So I do," said Michael.

"Well then, go and play."

He went and to a heavenly place that he knew of. But as he played with
Himself there he thought: "Auntie Emmy doesn't tell the truth. I think
it is because she isn't happy."

Michael kept his best things to himself.

* * * * *

"I suppose you're happy," said Grannie, "now you've got the poor child
sent away."

Auntie Emmy raised her eyebrows and spread out her hands, as much as to
say she was helpless under her mother's stupidity.

"He'd have been sent away anyhow," said Frances. "It isn't good for him
to hang about listening to grown-up conversation."

It was her part to keep the peace between her mother and her sisters.

"It seems to me," said Auntie Louie, "that you began it yourself."

When a situation became uncomfortable, Auntie Louie always put her word
in and made it worse. She never would let Frances keep the peace.

Frances knew what Louie meant--that she was always flinging her babies
in Emmy's face at those moments when the sight of other people's babies
was too much for Emmy. She could never be prepared for Emmy's moments.

"It's all very well," Auntie Louie went on; "but I should like to hear
of somebody admiring Dorothy. I don't see where Dorothy comes in."

Dorothy was supposed, by the two Nannas, t