She had hardly written the final letter of her pretty name when the
front door was heard to open again, this time with a bang. Having
hastily tucked the note into the experienced envelope, Angela got
downstairs before her little brother, Wallie, had finished taking off
his dripping overcoat.
Wallie was quite the queerest, gravest boy Angela had ever known. In her
whole life, she had never seen him laugh but once. That was one summer
day in Mitchellton, when she, having undertaken to paper the walls of
her room, had fallen backward off the stepladder into a bucket of paste.
Wallie was an eccentric, undoubtedly. Still, he was admitted to be
obliging enough about little things. Now he made no special objections
to going for the sugar; and when Angela then asked him please to step by
at the same time, and give the note to Mr. Garrott, he only said, with
one of his absent stares: "Step by? That's six blocks further."
"Well, I haven't anybody else to take it for me, Wallie," said Angela,
in a voice rather like her mother's.
"And, Wallie," she added, presently, "I'm not sure whether there'll be
an answer or not. You'd better just ask him, that's the best way. Just
say, after he's read it, 'Is there any answer?'"