"Because nothing makes old ladies so angry as that. Why, if you were to walk in and say, `How do you do, Aunt Emptycap?' it might make her cross all the time you stay." "Might it really?" said Susan. She felt a little doubtful whether Freddie was to be trusted, and yet he spoke as if he knew. It was something, however, to have made him talk about it at all. "She's got another name, I suppose," she continued; "something easier to say. I shall call her that, and then she couldn't be angry." "Oh, yes, she could," said Freddie quickly; "she would think that rude, because she's Mother's aunt, you know, our _great_ aunt." "Do you suppose she's very old?" asked Susan, putting the next question that had filled her mind. "Very," said Freddie; "and as for crossness!" He lifted up his eyes and hands without finishing the sentence. Susan felt discouraged, though she had a feeling that Freddie was "making up." Still, what he said was so like what she thought of the matter herself that it had a great effect upon her. "If you like," continued Freddie graciously, "I'll tell you just what I think she'll be like." Susan nodded, though she inwardly dreaded the description. "You know," began Freddie, opening his large eyes very wide, "that picture of old Mother Holle in Grimm?" Susan knew it very well, for it always made her uncomfortable to look at it, and she thought of it sometimes at night. "Aunt Enticknapp is something like that," he went on, speaking with relish in a low tone, "only uglier. With a hookier nose, and bigger eyebrows, and a hump on her back. She talks in a croaky sort of voice like a frog, and she takes snuff, and carries a black stick with a silver top." Susan stared at her brother without speaking, and clutched her doll more tightly to her chest; but though this terrible picture really alarmed her, she had a proud spirit, and was not going to let him know it. "You don't suppose I believe that," she said scornfully; "that's only like a fairy old woman." "You just wait," said Freddie solemnly, "till you get down there and see her." Just then Maria came into the room with her bonnet on. Miss Susan was to go out with her, she said, and do some shopping for Nurse, and she must come and be dressed at once. Susan collected her property and marched out of the room, holding her head very high to show Freddie that she did not care for what he had said; but, as soon as she was alone with Maria, she thought of it with a very heavy mind.