"Children," she uttered in an emphatic voice, half-surprised remonstrance, half-automatic rebuke; "I am astonished!" She looked it. She pursed her lips more tightly, and gazed at the pair of culprits as though she had hoped better things of them and _again_ had been disappointed. "You know quite well that this is out of bounds." It came out like an arrow, darting. "We were looking for some one," began Tim, but in a tone that added plainly enough "it wasn't you." "Who's hiding, you see," quoth Judy, "but expecting us--at once." The delay annoyed her. "You are both well aware," Aunt Emily went on, ignoring their excuses as in duty bound, "that your parents would not approve. At this hour of the morning too! You ought to be fast asleep in bed. If your father knew--!" Yet, strange to say, the children felt that they loved her suddenly; for the first time in their lives they thought her lovable. A kind of understanding sympathy woke in them; there was something pitiable about her. For, obviously, she was looking just as they were, but looking in such a silly way and in such hopelessly stupid places. All her life she had been looking like this, dressed in crackling black, wearing a prickly bonnet and heavy goloshes, and carrying a useless umbrella that of course must bother her. It was disappointment that made her talk as she did. But it was natural she should feel disappointment, for it never rained when she had her umbrella, and her goloshes were always coming off. "She's stuck in a hole," thought Tim, "and so she just says things at us. She hurts herself somewhere. She's tired." "She has to be like that," thought Judy. "It's really all pretending. Poor old thing!" But Aunt Emily was not aware of what they felt. They were out of bed, and it was her duty to find fault; they were out of bounds, and she must take note of it. So she prepared to scold a little. Her bonnet waggled ominously. She gripped her umbrella. She spoke as though it was very early in the morning, almost dawn--as though the sun were rising. There was confusion in her as to the time of day, it seemed. But the children did not notice this. They were so accustomed to being rebuked by her that the actual words made small impression. She was just "saying things"; they were often very muddled things; the attitude, not the meaning, counted. And her attitude, they divined, was subtly different. "You know this is forbidden," she said. "It is damp and chilly. It's sure to rain presently. You'll get your feet wet. You should keep to the gravel paths. They're plain enough, are they not?" She looked about her, sniffing--a sniff that usually summoned disasters in a flock. "Oh, yes," said Tim; "and they look like brown sugar, _we_ thought." "It does not matter what you thought, Timothy. The paths are made on purpose to be walked upon and used--" "They're beautifully made," interrupted Judy, unable to keep silent longer. "WEEDEN made them for us."