CHAPTER IV A BROKEN TEACUP––––––––
“I’LL tell her you’re here, but I’m no ways sure she’ll see you.”
Mrs. Adams stood, her hand on the doorknob, as she looked doubtfully at Emily Bates and her nephew.
“Why not?” asked Mrs. Bates, in astonishment, and Pinky echoed, “Why not, Mrs. Adams?”
“She’s queer.” Mrs. Adams came back into the room, closed the door, and spoke softly. “That’s what she is, Mrs. Bates, queer. I can’t make her out. She’s been here more’n a week now, and I do say she gets queerer every day. Won’t make friends with anybody,—won’t speak at all at the table,—never comes and sits with us of an afternoon or evening,—just keeps to herself. Now, that ain’t natural for a young girl.”
“How old is she?”
“Nobody knows. She looks like nineteen or twenty, but she has the ways of a
