Emily Climbs By Lucy Maud Montgomery

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Emily Climbs

Lucy Maud Montgomery

Published: 1925

Categorie(s): Fiction, Juvenile & Young Adult

Source: http://gutenberg.net.au About Montgomery:

Lucy Maud Montgomery CBE, (always called "Maud" by family and friends) and publicly known as L. M. Montgomery, (November 30, 1874–April 24, 1942) was a Canadian author, best known for a series of novels beginning with Anne of Green Gables, published in 1908. Once published, Anne of Green Gables was an immediate success. The central character, Anne, an orphaned girl, made Montgomery famous in her lifetime and gave her an international following. The first novel was followed by a series of sequels with Anne as the central character. The novels became the basis for the highly acclaimed 1985 CBC television miniseries, Anne of Green Gables and several other television movies and programs, including Road to Avonlea, which ran in Canada and the U.S. from 1990-1996. Source: Wikipedia

Also available on Feedbooks Montgomery:

- Anne of Green Gables (1908)

- Anne of Windy Poplars (1936)

- Anne of Ingleside (1939)

- Anne of Avonlea (1909)

- Anne of the Island (1915)

- Rainbow Valley (1919)

- Anne's House of Dreams (1917)

- Rilla of Ingleside (1921)

- The Blue Castle (1926)

- Emily of New Moon (1923)

Copyright: This work is available for countries where copyright is Life+70.

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Chapter 1 Writing Herself Out

Emily Byrd Starr was alone in her room, in the old New Moon farmhouse at Blair Water, one stormy night in a February of the olden years before the world turned upside down. She was at that moment as perfectly happy as any human being is ever permitted to be. Aunt Elizabeth, in consideration of the coldness of the night, had allowed her to have a fire in her little fireplace—a rare favour. It was burning brightly and showering a red-golden light over the small, immaculate room, with its old-time furniture and deep-set, wide-silled windows, to whose frosted, blue-white panes the snowflakes clung in little wreaths. It lent depth and mystery to the mirror on the wall which reflected Emily as she sat coiled on the ottoman before the fire, writing, by the light of two tall, white candles—which were the only approved means of illumination at New Moon—in a brand-new, glossy, black "Jimmy-book" which Cousin Jimmy had given her that day. Emily had been very glad to get it, for she had filled the one he had given her the preceding autumn, and for over a week she had suffered acute pangs of suppression because she could not write in a nonexistent "diary."

Her diary had become a dominant factor in her young, vivid life. It had taken the place of certain "letters" she had written in her childhood to her dead father, in which she had been wont to "write out" her problems and worries—for even in the magic years when one is almost fourteen one has problems and worries, especially when one is under the strict and well-meant but not over-tender governance of an Aunt Elizabeth Murray. Sometimes Emily felt that if it were not for her diary she would have flown into little bits by reason of consuming her own smoke. The fat, black "Jimmy-book" seemed to her like a personal friend and a safe confidant for certain matters which burned for expression and yet were too combustible to be trusted to the ears of any living being. Now blank books of any sort were not easy to come by at New Moon, and if it had not been for Cousin Jimmy, Emily might never have had one. Certainly Aunt Elizabeth would not give her one—Aunt Elizabeth thought Emily wasted far too much time "over her scribbling nonsense" as it was—and Aunt Laura did not dare to go contrary to Aunt Elizabeth in this—more by token that Laura herself really thought Emily might be better employed. Aunt Laura was a jewel of a woman, but certain things were holden from her eyes.

Now Cousin Jimmy was never in the least frightened of Aunt Elizabeth, and when the notion occurred to him that Emily probably wanted another "blank book," that blank book materialized straightway, in defiance of Aunt Elizabeth's scornful glances. He had gone to Shrewsbury that very day, in the teeth of the rising storm, for no other reason than to get it. So Emily was happy, in her subtle and friendly firelight, while the wind howled and shrieked through the great old trees to the north of New Moon, sent huge, spectral wreaths of snow whirling across Cousin Jimmy's famous garden, drifted the sundial completely over, and whistled eerily through the Three Princesses—as Emily always called the three tall Lombardies in the corner of the garden.

"I love a storm like this at night when I don't have to go out in it," wrote Emily. "Cousin Jimmy and I had a splendid evening planning out our garden and choosing our seeds and plants in the catalogue. Just where the biggest drift is making, behind the summer-house, we are going to have a bed of pink asters, and we are going to give the Golden Ones—who are dreaming under four feet of snow—a background of flowering almond. I love to plan out summer days like this, in the midst of a storm. It makes me feel as if I were winning a victory over something ever so much bigger than myself, just because I have a brain and the storm is nothing but blind, white force—terrible, but blind. I have the same feeling when I sit here cosily by my own dear fire, and hear it raging all around me, and laugh at it. And that is just because over a hundred years ago great-great-grandfather Murray built this house and built it well. I wonder if, a hundred years from now, anybody will win a victory over anything because of something I left or did. It is an inspiring thought.

"I drew that line of italics before I thought. Mr. Carpenter says I use far too many italics. He says it is an Early Victorian obsession, and I must strive to cast it off. I concluded I would when I looked in the dictionary, for it is evidently not a nice thing to be obsessed, though it doesn't seem quite so bad as to be possessed. There I go again: but I think the italics are all right this time.

"I read the dictionary for a whole hour—till Aunt Elizabeth got suspicious and suggested that it would be much better for me to be knitting my ribbed stockings. She couldn't see exactly why it was wrong for me to be poring over the dictionary but she felt sure it must be because she never wants to do it. I love reading the dictionary. (Yes, those italics are necessary, Mr. Carpenter. An ordinary 'love' wouldn't express my feeling at all!) Words are such fascinating things. (I caught myself at the first syllable that time!) The very sound of some of them—'haunted'—'mystic'—for example, gives me the flash. (Oh, dear! But I have to italicize the flash. It isn't ordinary—it's the most extraordinary and wonderful thing in my whole life. When it comes I feel as if a door had swung open in a wall before me and given me a glimpse of—yes, of heaven. More italics! Oh, I see why Mr, Carpenter scolds! I must break myself of the habit.)

"Big words are never beautiful—'incriminating'—'obstreperous'—'international'—'unconstitutional.' They make me think of those horrible big dahlias and chrysanthemums Cousin Jimmy took me to see at the exhibition in Charlottetown last fall. We couldn't see anything lovely in them, though some people thought them wonderful. Cousin Jimmy's little yellow 'mums, like pale, fairy-like stars shining against the fir copse in the north-west corner of the garden, were ten times more beautiful. But I am wandering from my subject—also a bad habit of mine, according to Mr. Carpenter. He says I must (the italics are his this time!) learn to concentrate—another big word and a very ugly one.

"But I had a good time over that dictionary—much better than I had over the ribbed stockings. I wish I could have a pair—just one pair—of silk stockings. Ilse has three. Her father gives her everything she wants, now that he has learned to love her. But Aunt Elizabeth says silk stockings are immoral. I wonder why—any more than silk dresses.

"Speaking of silk dresses, Aunt Janey Milburn, at Derry Pond—she isn't any relation really, but everybody calls her that—has made a vow that she will never wear a silk dress until the whole heathen world is converted to Christianity. That is very fine. I wish I could be as good as that, but I couldn't—I love silk too much. It is so rich and sheeny. I would like to dress in it all the time, and if I could afford to I would—though I suppose every time I thought of dear old Aunt Janey and the unconverted heathen I would feel conscience-stricken. However, it will be years, if ever, before I can afford to buy even one silk dress, and meanwhile I give some of my egg money every month to missions. (I have five hens of my own now, all descended from the gray pullet Perry gave me on my twelfth birthday.) If ever I can buy that one silk dress I know what it is going to be like. Not black or brown or navy blue—sensible, serviceable colours, such as New Moon Murrays always wear—oh, dear, no! It is to be of shot silk, blue in one light, silver in others, like a twilight sky, glimpsed through a frosted window-pane—with a bit of lace-foam here and there, like those little feathers of snow clinging to my window-pane. Teddy says he will paint me in it and call it 'The Ice Maiden,' and Aunt Laura smiles and says, sweetly and condescendingly, in a way I hate even in dear Aunt Laura,

"'What use would such a dress be to you, Emily?'

"It mightn't be of any use, but I would feel in it as if it were a part of me—that it grew on me and wasn't just bought and put on. I want one dress like that in my life-time. And a silk petticoat underneath it—and silk stockings!

"Ilse has a silk dress now—a bright pink one. Aunt Elizabeth says Dr. Burnley dresses Ilse far too old and rich for a child. But he wants to make up for all the years he didn't dress her at all. (I don't mean she went naked, but she might have as far as Dr. Burnley was concerned. Other people had to see to her clothes.) He does everything she wants him to do now, and gives her her own way in everything. Aunt Elizabeth says it is very bad for her, but there are times when I envy Ilse a little. I know it is wicked, but I cannot help it.

"Dr. Burnley is going to send Ilse to Shrewsbury High School next fall, and after that to Montreal to study elocution. That is why I envy her—not because of the silk dress. I wish Aunt Elizabeth would let me go to Shrewsbury, but I fear she never will. She feels she can't trust me out of her sight because my mother eloped. But she need not be afraid I will ever elope. I have made up my mind that I will never marry. I shall be wedded to my art.

"Teddy wants to go to Shrewsbury next fall, but his mother won't let him go, either. Not that she is afraid of his eloping, but because she loves him so much she can't part with him. Teddy wants to be an artist, and Mr. Carpenter says he has genius and should have his chance, but everybody is afraid to say anything to Mrs. Kent. She is a little bit of a woman—no taller than I am, really, quiet and shy—and yet every one is afraid of her. I am—dreadfully afraid. I've always known she didn't like me—ever since those days long ago when Ilse and I first went up to the Tansy Patch, to play with Teddy. But now she hates me—I feel sure of it—just because Teddy likes me. She can't bear to have him like anybody or anything but her. She is even jealous of his pictures. So there is not much chance of his getting to Shrewsbury. Perry is going. He hasn't a cent, but he is going to work his way through. That is why he thinks he will go to Shrewsbury in place of Queen's Academy. He thinks it will be easier to get work to do in Shrewsbury, and board is cheaper there.

"'My old beast of an Aunt Tom has a little money,' he told me, 'but she won't give me any of it—unless—unless—'

"Then he looked at me significantly.

"I blushed because I couldn't help it, and then I was furious with myself for blushing, and with Perry—because he referred to something I didn't want to hear about—that time ever so long ago when his Aunt Tom met me in Lofty John's bush and nearly frightened me to death by demanding that I promise to marry Perry when we grew up, in which case she would educate him. I never told anybody about it—being ashamed—except Ilse, and she said,

"'The idea of old Aunt Tom aspiring to a Murray for Perry!'

"But then, Ilse is awfully hard on Perry and quarrels with him half the time, over things I only smile at. Perry never likes to be outdone by anyone in anything. When we were at Amy Moore's party last week, her uncle told us a story of some remarkable freak calf he had seen, with three legs, and Perry said,

"'Oh, that's nothing to a duck I saw once in Norway.'

"(Perry really was in Norway. He used to sail everywhere with his father when he was little. But I don't believe one word about that duck. He wasn't lying—he was just romancing. Dear Mr. Carpenter, I can't get along without italics.)

"Perry's duck had four legs, according to him—two where a proper duck's legs should be, and two sprouting from its back. And when it got tired of walking on its ordinary pair it flopped over on its back and walked on the other pair!

"Perry told this yarn with a sober face, and everybody laughed, and Amy's uncle said, 'Go up head, Perry.' But Ilse was furious and wouldn't speak to him all the way home. She said he had made a fool of himself, trying to 'show off' with a silly story like that, and that no gentleman would act so.

"Perry said: 'I'm no gentleman, yet, only a hired boy, but some day, Miss Ilse, I'll be a finer gentleman than anyone you know.'

"'Gentlemen,' said Ilse in a nasty voice, 'have to be born. They can't be made, you know.'

"Ilse has almost given up calling names, as she used to do when she quarrelled with Perry or me, and taken to saying cruel, cutting things. They hurt far worse than the names used to, but I don't really mind them—much—or long—because I know Ilse doesn't mean them and really loves me as much as I love her. But Perry says they stick in his crop. They didn't speak to each other the rest of the way home, but next day Ilse was at him again about using bad grammar and not standing up when a lady enters the room.

"'Of course you couldn't be expected to know that,' she said in her nastiest voice, 'but I am sure Mr. Carpenter has done his best to teach you grammar.'

"Perry didn't say one word to Ilse, but he turned to me.

"'Will you tell me my faults?' he said. 'I don't mind you doing it—it will be you that will have to put up with me when we're grown up, not Ilse.'

"He said that to make Ilse angry, but it made me angrier still, for it was an allusion to a forbidden topic. So we neither of us spoke to him for two days and he said it was a good rest from Ilse's slams anyway.

"Perry is not the only one who gets into disgrace at New Moon. I said something silly yesterday evening which makes me blush to recall it. The Ladies' Aid met here and Aunt Elizabeth gave them a supper and the husbands of the Aid came to it. Ilse and I waited on the table, which was set in the kitchen because the dining-room table wasn't long enough. It was exciting at first and then, when every one was served, it was a little dull and I began to compose some poetry in my mind as I stood by the window looking out on the garden. It was so interesting that I soon forgot everything else until suddenly I heard Aunt Elizabeth say, 'Emily,' very sharply, and then she looked significantly at Mr. Johnson, our new minister. I was confused and I snatched up the teapot and exclaimed,

"'Oh, Mr. Cup, will you have your Johnson filled?'

"Everybody roared and Aunt Elizabeth looked disgusted and Aunt Laura ashamed, and I felt as if I would sink through the floor. I couldn't sleep half the night for thinking over it. The strange thing was that I do believe I felt worse and more ashamed than I would have felt if I had done something really wrong. This is the 'Murray pride' of course, and I suppose it is very wicked. Sometimes I am afraid Aunt Ruth Dutton is right in her opinion of me after all.

"No, she isn't!

"But it is a tradition of New Moon that its women should be equal to any situation and always be graceful and dignified. Now, there was nothing graceful or dignified in asking such a question of the new minister. I am sure he will never see me again without thinking of it and I will always writhe when I catch his eye upon me.

"But now that I have written it out in my diary I don't feel so badly over it. Nothing ever seems as big or as terrible—oh, nor as beautiful and grand, either, alas!—when it is written out, as it does when you are thinking or feeling about it. It seems to shrinkdirectly you put it into words. Even the line of poetry I had made just before I asked that absurd question won't seem half as fine when I write it down:

> "Where the velvet feet of darkness softly go.

"It doesn't. Some bloom seems gone from it. And yet, while I was standing there, behind all those chattering, eating people, and saw darkness stealing so softly over the garden and the hills, like a beautiful woman robed in shadows, with stars for eyes, theflash came and I forgot everything but that I wanted to put something of the beauty I felt into the words of my poem. When that line came into my mind it didn't seem to me that I composed it at all—it seemed as if Something Else were trying to speak through me—and it was that Something Else that made the line seem wonderful—and now when it is gone the words seem flat and foolish and the picture I tried to draw in them not so wonderful after all.

"Oh, if I could only put things into words as I see them! Mr. Carpenter says, 'Strive—strive—keep on—words are your medium—make them your slaves—until they will say for you what you want them to say.' That is true—and I do try—but it seems to me there is something beyond words—any words—all words—something that always escapes you when you try to grasp it—and yet leaves something in your hand which you wouldn't have had if you hadn't reached for it.

"I remember one day last fall when Dean and I walked over the Delectable Mountain to the woods beyond it—fir woods mostly, but with one corner of splendid old pines. We sat under them and Dean read Peveril of the Peak and some of Scott's poems to me; and then he looked up into the big, plumy boughs and said,

"'The gods are talking in the pines—gods of the old northland—of the viking sagas. Star, do you know Emerson's lines?'

"And then he quoted them—I've remembered and loved them ever since.

> "The gods talk in the breath of the wold,

> They talk in the shaken pine,

> And they fill the reach of the old seashore

> With dialogue divine;

> And the poet who overhears

> One random word they say

> Is the fated man of men

> Whom the ages must obey.

"Oh, that 'random word'—that is the Something that escapes me. I'm always listening for it—I know I can never hear it—my ear isn't attuned to it—but I am sure I hear at times a little, faint, far-off echo of it—and it makes me feel a delight that is like pain and a despair of ever being able to translate its beauty into any words I know.

"Still, it is a pity I made such a goose of myself immediately after that wonderful experience.

"If I had just floated up behind Mr. Johnson, as velvet-footedly as darkness herself, and poured his tea gracefully from Great-grandmother Murray's silver teapot, like my shadow-woman pouring night into the white cup of Blair Valley, Aunt Elizabeth would be far better pleased with me than if I could write the most wonderful poem in the world.

"Cousin Jimmy is so different. I recited my poem to him this evening after we had finished with the catalogue and he thought it was beautiful. (He couldn't know how far it fell short of what I had seen in my mind.) Cousin Jimmy composes poetry himself. He is very clever in spots. And in other spots, where his brain was hurt when Aunt Elizabeth pushed him into our New Moon well, he isn't anything. There's just blankness there. So people call him simple, and Aunt Ruth dares to say he hasn't sense enough to shoo a cat from cream. And yet if you put all his clever spots together there isn't anybody in Blair Water has half as much real cleverness as he has—not even Mr. Carpenter. The trouble is you can't put his clever spots together—there are always those gaps between. But I love Cousin Jimmy and I'm never in the least afraid of him when his queer spells come on him. Everybody else is—even Aunt Elizabeth, though perhaps it is remorse with her, instead of fear—except Perry. Perry always brags that he is never afraid of anything—doesn't know what fear is. I think that is very wonderful. I wish I could be so fearless. Mr. Carpenter says fear is a vile thing, and is at the bottom of almost every wrong and hatred of the world.

"'Cast it out, Jade,' he says—'cast it out of your heart. Fear is a confession of weakness. What you fear is stronger than you, or you think it is, else you wouldn't be afraid of it. Remember your Emerson—"always do what you are afraid to do."'

"But that is a counsel of perfection, as Dean says, and I don't believe I'll ever be able to attain to it. To be honest, I am afraid of a good many things, but there are only two people in the world I'm truly afraid of. One is Mrs. Kent, and the other is Mad Mr. Morrison. I'm terribly afraid of him and I think almost every one is. His home is in Derry Pond, but he hardly ever stays there—he roams over the country looking for his lost bride. He was married only a few weeks when his young wife died, many years ago, and he has never been right in his mind since. He insists she is not dead, only lost, and that he will find her some time. He has grown old and bent, looking for her, but to him she is still young and fair.

"He was here one day last summer, but would not come in—just peered into the kitchen wistfully and said, 'Is Annie here?' He was quite gentle that day, but sometimes he is very wild and violent. He declares he always hears Annie calling to him—that her voice flits on before him—always before him, like my random word. His face is wrinkled and shrivelled and he looks like an old, old monkey. But the thing I hate most about him is his right hand—it is a deep blood-red all over—birth-marked. I can't tell why, but that hand fills me with horror. I could not bear to touch it. And sometimes he laughs to himself very horribly. The only living thing he seems to care for is his old black dog that always is with him. They say he will never ask for a bite of food for himself. If people do not offer it to him he goes hungry, but he will beg for his dog.

"Oh, I am terribly afraid of him, and I was so glad he didn't come into the house that day. Aunt Elizabeth looked after him, as he went away with his long, gray hair streaming in the wind, and said,

"'Fairfax Morrison was once a fine, clever, young man, with excellent prospects. Well, God's ways are very mysterious.'

"'That is why they are interesting,' I said.

"But Aunt Elizabeth frowned and told me not to be irreverent, as she always does when I say anything about God. I wonder why. She won't let Perry and me talk about Him, either, though Perry is really very much interested in Him and wants to find out all about Him. Aunt Elizabeth overheard me telling Perry one Sunday afternoon what I thought God was like, and she said it was scandalous.

"It wasn't! The trouble is, Aunt Elizabeth and I have different Gods, that is all. Everybody has a different God, I think. Aunt Ruth's, for instance, is one that punishes her enemies—sends 'judgments' on them. That seems to me to be about all the use He really is to her. Jim Cosgrain uses his to swear by. But Aunt Janey Milburn walks in the light of her God's countenance, every day, and shines with it.

"I have written myself out for to-night, and am going to bed. I know I have 'wasted words' in this diary—another of my literary faults, according to Mr. Carpenter.

"'You waste words, Jade—you spill them about too lavishly. Economy and restraint—that's what you need.

"He's right, of course, and in my essays and stories I try to practise what he preaches. But in my diary, which nobody sees but myself, or ever will see until after I'm dead, I like just to let myself go."

********

Emily looked at her candle—it, too, was almost burned out. She knew she could not have another that night—Aunt Elizabeth's rules were as those of Mede and Persian: she put away her diary in the little right-hand cupboard above the mantel, covered her dying fire, undressed and blew out her candle. The room slowly filled with the faint, ghostly snow-light of a night when a full moon is behind the driving storm-clouds. And just as Emily was ready to slip into her high black bedstead a sudden inspiration came—a splendid new idea for a story. For a minute she shivered reluctantly: the room was getting cold. But the idea would not be denied. Emily slipped her hand between the feather tick of her bed and the chaff mattress and produced a half-burned candle, secreted there for just such an emergency.

It was not, of course, a proper thing to do. But then I have never pretended, nor ever will pretend, that Emily was a proper child. Books are not written about proper children. They would be so dull nobody would read them.

She lighted her candle, put on her stockings and a heavy coat, got out another half-filled Jimmy-book, and began to write by the single, uncertain candle which made a pale oasis of light in the shadows of the room. In that oasis Emily wrote, her black head bent over her book, as the hours of night crept away and the other occupants of New Moon slumbered soundly; she grew chill and cramped, but she was quite unconscious of it. Her eyes burned—her cheeks glowed—words came like troops of obedient genii to the call of her pen. When at last her candle went out with a splutter and a hiss in its little pool of melted tallow, she came back to reality with a sigh and a shiver. It was two, by the clock, and she was very tired and very cold; but she had finished her story and it was the best she had ever written. She crept into her cold nest with a sense of completion and victory, born of the working out of her creative impulse, and fell asleep to the lullaby of the waning storm.

Chapter 2 Salad Days

This book is not going to be wholly, or even mainly, made up of extracts from Emily's diary; but, by way of linking up matters unimportant enough for a chapter in themselves, and yet necessary for a proper understanding of her personality and environment, I am going to include some more of them. Besides, when one has material ready to hand, why not use it? Emily's "diary," with all its youthful crudities and italics, really gives a better interpretation of her and of her imaginative and introspective mind, in that, her fourteenth spring, than any biographer, however sympathetic, could do. So let us take another peep into the yellowed pages of that old "Jimmy-book," written long ago in the "look-out" of New Moon.

********

"February 15, 19—

"I have decided that I will write down, in this journal, every day, all my good deeds and all my bad ones. I got the idea out of a book, and it appeals to me. I mean to be as honest about it as I can. It will be easy, of course, to write down the good deeds, but not so easy to record the bad ones.

"I did only one bad thing to-day—only one thing I think bad, that is. I was impertinent to Aunt Elizabeth. She thought I took too long washing the dishes. I didn't suppose there was any hurry and I was composing a story called The Secret of the Mill.Aunt Elizabeth looked at me and then at the clock, and said in her most disagreeable way,

"'Is the snail your sister, Emily?'

"'No! Snails are no relation to me,' I said haughtily.

"It was not what I said, but the way I said it that was impertinent. And I meant it to be. I was very angry—sarcastic speeches always aggravate me. Afterwards I was very sorry that I had been in a temper—but I was sorry because it was foolish andundignified, not because it was wicked. So I suppose that was not true repentance.

"As for my good deeds, I did two to-day. I saved two little lives. Saucy Sal had caught a poor snowbird and I took it from her. It flew off quite briskly, and I am sure it felt wonderfully happy. Later on I went down to the cellar cupboard and found a mouse caught in a trap by its foot. The poor thing lay there, almost exhausted from struggling, with such a look in its black eyes. I couldn't endure it so I set it free, and it managed to get away quite smartly in spite of its foot. I do not feel sure about thisdeed. I know it was a good one from the mouse's point of view, but what about Aunt Elizabeth's?

"This evening Aunt Laura and Aunt Elizabeth read and burned a boxful of old letters. They read them aloud and commented on them, while I sat in a corner and knitted my stockings. The letters were very interesting and I learned a great deal about the Murrays I had never known before. I feel that it is quite wonderful to belong to a family like this. No wonder the Blair Water folks call us 'the Chosen People'—though they don't mean it as a compliment. I feel that I must live up to the traditions of my family.

"I had a long letter from Dean Priest to-day. He is spending the winter in Algiers. He says he is coming home in April and is going to take rooms with his sister, Mrs. Fred Evans, for the summer. I am so glad. It will be splendid to have him in Blair Water all summer. Nobody ever talks to me as Dean does. He is the nicest and most interesting old person I know. Aunt Elizabeth says he is selfish, as all the Priests are. But then she does not like the Priests. And she always calls him Jarback, which somehow sets my teeth on edge. One of Dean's shoulders is a little higher than the other, but that is not his fault. I told Aunt Elizabeth once that I wished she would not call my friend that, but she only said,

"'I did not nickname your friend, Emily. His own clan have always called him Jarback. The Priests are not noted for delicacy!"

"Teddy had a letter from Dean, too, and a book—The Lives of Great Artists—Michael Angelo, Raphael, Velasquez, Rembrandt, Titian. He says he dare not let his mother see him reading it—she would burn it. I am sure if Teddy could only have his chance he would be as great an artist as any of them.

********

"February 18, 19—

"I had a lovely time with myself this evening, after school, walking on the brook road in Lofty John's bush. The sun was low and creamy and the snow so white and the shadows so slender and blue. I think there is nothing so beautiful as tree shadows. And when I came out into the garden my own shadow looked so funny—so long that it stretched right across the garden. I immediately made a poem of which two lines were,

> "If we were as tall as our shadows

> How tall our shadows would be.

"I think there is a good deal of philosophy in that.

"To-night I wrote a story and Aunt Elizabeth knew what I was doing and was very much annoyed. She scolded me for wasting time. But it wasn't wasted time. I grew in it—I know I did. And there was something about some of the sentences I liked. 'Iam afraid of the grey wood'—that pleased me very much. And—'white and stately she walked the dark wood like a moonbeam.' I think that is rather fine. Yet Mr. Carpenter tells me that whenever I think a thing especially fine I am to cut it out. But oh, Ican't cut that out—not yet, at least. The strange part is that about three months after Mr. Carpenter tells me to cut a thing out I come round to his point of view and feel ashamed of it. Mr. Carpenter was quite merciless over my essay to-day. Nothing about it suited him.

"'Three alas's in one paragraph, Emily. One would have been too many in this year of grace!' 'More irresistible—Emily, for heaven's sake, write English! That is unpardonable.'

"It was, too. I saw it for myself and I felt shame going all over me from head to foot like a red wave. Then, after Mr. Carpenter had blue-pencilled almost every sentence and sneered at all my fine phrases and found fault with most of my constructions and told me I was too fond of putting 'cleverisms' into everything I wrote, he flung my exercise book down, tore at his hair and said,

"'You write! Jade, get a spoon and learn to cook!'

"Then he strode off, muttering maledictions 'not loud but deep.' I picked up my poor essay and didn't feel very badly. I can cook already, and I have learned a thing or two about Mr. Carpenter. The better my essays are the more he rages over them. This one must have been quite good. But it makes him so angry and impatient to see where I might have made it still better and didn't—through carelessness or laziness or indifference—as he thinks. And he can't tolerate a person who could do better and doesn't. And he wouldn't bother with me at all if he didn't think I may amount to something by and by.

"Aunt Elizabeth does not approve of Mr. Johnson. She thinks his theology is not sound. He said in his sermon last Sunday that there was some good in Buddhism.

"'He will be saying that there is some good in Popery next,' said Aunt Elizabeth indignantly at the dinner-table.

"There may be some good in Buddhism. I must ask Dean about it when he comes home.

********

"March 2, 19—

"We were all at a funeral to-day—old Mrs. Sarah Paul. I have always liked going to funerals. When I said that, Aunt Elizabeth looked shocked and Aunt Laura said, 'Oh, Emily dear!' I rather like to shock Aunt Elizabeth, but I never feel comfortable if I worry Aunt Laura—she's such a darling—so I explained—or tried to. It is sometimes very hard to explain things to Aunt Elizabeth.

"'Funerals are interesting,' I said. 'And humorous, too.'

"I think I only made matters worse by saying that. And yet Aunt Elizabeth knew as well as I did that it was funny to see some of those relatives of Mrs. Paul, who have fought with and hated her for years—she wasn't amiable, if she is dead!—sitting there, holding their handkerchiefs to their faces and pretending to cry. I knew quite well what each and every one was thinking in his heart. Jake Paul was wondering if the old harridan had by any chance left him anything in her will—and Alice Paul, who knewshe wouldn't get anything, was hoping Jake Paul wouldn't either. That would satisfy her. And Mrs. Charles Paul was wondering how soon it would be decent to do the house over the way she had always wanted it and Mrs. Paul hadn't. And Aunty Min was worrying for fear there wouldn't be enough baked meats for such a mob of fourth cousins that they'd never expected and didn't want, and Lisette Paul was counting the people and feeling vexed because there wasn't as large an attendance as there was at Mrs. Henry Lister's funeral last week. When I told Aunt Laura this, she said gravely,

"'All this may be true, Emily'—(she knew it was!)—'but somehow it doesn't seem quite right for so young a girl as you, to—to—to be able to see these things, in short.'

"However, I can't help seeing them. Darling Aunt Laura is always so sorry for people that she can't see their humorous side. But I saw other things too. I saw that little Zack Fritz, whom Mrs. Paul adopted and was very kind to, was almost broken-hearted, and I saw that Martha Paul was feeling sorry and ashamed to think of her bitter old quarrel with Mrs. Paul—and I saw that Mrs. Paul's face, that looked so discontented and thwarted in life, looked peaceful and majestic and even beautiful—as if Death had satisfied her at last.

"Yes, funerals are interesting.

********

"March 5, 19—

"It is snowing a little to-night. I love to see the snow coming down in slanting lines against the dark trees.

"I think I did a good deed to-day. Jason Merrowby was here helping Cousin Jimmy saw wood—and I saw him sneak into the pighouse, and take a swig from a whisky bottle. But I did not say one word about it to anyone—that is my good deed.

"Perhaps I ought to tell Aunt Elizabeth, but if I did she would never have him again, and he needs all the work he can get, for his poor wife's and children's sakes. I find it is not always easy to be sure whether your deeds are good or bad.

********

"March 20, 19—

"Yesterday Aunt Elizabeth was very angry because I would not write an 'obituary poem' for old Peter DeGeer who died last week. Mrs. DeGeer came here and asked me to do it. I wouldn't—I felt very indignant at such a request. I felt it would be a desecration of my art to do such a thing—though of course I didn't say that to Mrs. DeGeer. For one thing it would have hurt her feelings, and for another she wouldn't have had the faintest idea what I meant. Even Aunt Elizabeth hadn't when I told her my reasons for refusing, after Mrs. DeGeer had gone.

"'You are always writing yards of trash that nobody wants,' she said. 'I think you might write something that is wanted. It would have pleased poor old Mary DeGeer. "Desecration of your art" indeed. If you must talk, Emily, why not talk sense?'

"I proceeded to talk sense.

"'Aunt Elizabeth,' I said seriously, 'how could I write that obituary poem for her? I couldn't write an untruthful one to please anybody. And you know yourself that nothing good and truthful could be said about old Peter DeGeer!'

"Aunt Elizabeth did know it, and it posed her, but she was all the more displeased with me for that. She vexed me so much that I came up to my room and wrote an 'obituary poem' about Peter, just for my own satisfaction. It is certainly great fun to write a truthful obituary of some one you don't like. Not that I disliked Peter DeGeer; I just despised him as everybody did. But Aunt Elizabeth had annoyed me, and when I am annoyed I can write very sarcastically. And again I felt that Something was writing through me—but a very different Something from the usual one—a malicious, mocking Something that enjoyed making fun of poor, lazy, shiftless, lying, silly, hypocritical, old Peter DeGeer. Ideas—words—rhymes—all seemed to drop into place while that Something chuckled.

"I thought the poem was so clever that I couldn't resist the temptation to take it to school to-day and show it to Mr Carpenter. I thought he would enjoy it—and I think he did, too, in a way, but after he had read it he laid it down and looked at me.

"'I suppose there is a pleasure in satirizing a failure,' he said. 'Poor old Peter was a failure—and he is dead—and His Maker may be merciful to him, but his fellow creatures will not. When I am dead, Emily, will you write like this about me? You have the power—oh, yes, it's all here—this is very clever. You can paint the weakness and foolishness and wickedness of a character in a way that is positively uncanny, in a girl of your age. But—is it worth while, Emily?'

"'No—no,' I said. I was so ashamed and sorry that I wanted to get away and cry. It was terrible to think Mr. Carpenter imagined I would ever write so about him, after all he has done for me.

"'It isn't,' said Mr. Carpenter. 'There is a place for satire—there are gangrenes that can only be burned out—but leave the burning to the great geniuses. It's better to heal than hurt. We failures know that.'

"'Oh, Mr. Carpenter!' I began. I wanted to say he wasn't a failure—I wanted to say a hundred things—but he wouldn't let me.

"'There—there, we won't talk of it, Emily. When I am dead say, "He was a failure, and none knew it more truly or felt it more bitterly than himself." Be merciful to the failures, Emily. Satirize wickedness if you must—but pity weakness.'

"He stalked off then, and called school in. I've felt wretched ever since and I won't sleep to-night. But here and now I record this vow, most solemnly, in my diary, My pen shall heal, not hurt. And I write it in italics, Early Victorian or not, because I am tremendously in earnest.

"I didn't tear that poem up, though—I couldn't—it really was too good to destroy. I put it away in my literary cupboard to read over once in a while for my own enjoyment, but I will never show it to anybody.

"Oh, how I wish I hadn't hurt Mr. Carpenter!

********

"April 1, 19—

"Something I heard a visitor in Blair Water say today annoyed me very much. Mr. and Mrs. Alec Sawyer, who live in Charlottetown, were in the post office when I was there. Mrs. Sawyer is very handsome and fashionable and condescending. I heard her say to her husband, 'How do the natives of this sleepy place continue to live here year in and year out? I should go mad. Nothing ever happens here.'

"I would dearly have liked to tell her a few things about Blair Water. I could have been sarcastic with a vengeance. But, of course, New Moon people do not make scenes in public. So I contented myself with bowing very coldly when she spoke to me and sweeping past her. I heard Mr. Sawyer say, 'Who is that girl?' and Mrs. Sawyer said, 'She must be that Starr puss—she has the Murray trick of holding her head, all right.'

"The idea of saying 'nothing ever happens here'! Why, things are happening right along—thrilling things. I think life here is extremely wonderful. We have always so much to laugh and cry and talk about.

"Look at all the things that have happened in Blair Water in just the last three weeks—comedy and tragedy all mixed up together. James Baxter has suddenly stopped speaking to his wife and nobody knows why. She doesn't, poor soul, and she is breaking her heart about it. Old Adam Gillian, who hated pretence of any sort, died two weeks ago and his last words were, 'See that there isn't any howling and sniffling at my funeral.' So nobody howled or sniffled. Nobody wanted to, and since he had forbidden it nobody pretended to. There never was such a cheerful funeral in Blair Water. I've seen weddings that were more melancholy—Ella Brice's, for instance. What cast a cloud over hers was that she forgot to put on her white slippers when she dressed, and went down to the parlour in a pair of old, faded, bedroom shoes with holes in the toes. Really, people couldn't have talked more about it if she had gone down without anything on. Poor Ella cried all through the wedding-supper about it.

"Old Robert Scobie and his half-sister have quarrelled, after living together for thirty years without a fuss, although she is said to be a very aggravating woman. Nothing she did or said ever provoked Robert into an outburst, but it seems that there was just one doughnut left from supper one evening recently, and Robert is very fond of doughnuts. He put it away in the pantry for a bedtime snack, and when he went to get it he found that Matilda had eaten it. He went into a terrible rage, pulled her nose, called her a she-deviless, and ordered her out of his house. She has gone to live with her sister at Derry Pond, and Robert is going to bach it. Neither of them will ever forgive the other, Scobie-like, and neither will ever be happy or contented again.

"George Lake was walking home from Derry Pond one moonlit evening two weeks ago, and all at once he saw another very black shadow going along beside his, on the moonlit snow.

"And there was nothing to cast that shadow.

He rushed to the nearest house, nearly dead with fright, and they say he will never be the same man again.

"This is the most dramatic thing that has happened. It makes me shiver as I write of it. Of course George must have been mistaken. But he is a truthful man, and he doesn't drink. I don't know what to think of it.

"Arminius Scobie is a very mean man and always buys his wife's hats for her, lest she pay too much for them. They know this in the Shrewsbury stores, and laugh at him. One day last week he was in Jones and McCallum's, buying her a hat, and Mr. Jones told him that if he would wear the hat from the store to the station he would let him have it for nothing. Arminius did. It was a quarter of a mile to the station and all the small boys in Shrewsbury ran after him and hooted him. But Arminus didn't care. He had saved three dollars and forty-nine cents.

"And, one evening, right here at New Moon, I dropped a soft-boiled egg on Aunt Elizabeth's second-best cashmere dress. That was a happening. A kingdom might have been upset in Europe, and it wouldn't have made such a commotion at New Moon.

"So, Mistress Sawyer, you are vastly mistaken. Besides, apart from all happenings, the folks here are interesting in themselves. I don't like every one but I find every one interesting—Miss Matty Small, who is forty and wears outrageous colours—she wore an old-rose dress and a scarlet hat to church all last summer—old Uncle Reuben Bascom, who is so lazy that he held an umbrella over himself all one rainy night in bed, when the roof began to leak, rather than get out and move the bed—Elder McCloskey, who thought it wouldn't do to say 'pants' in a story he was telling about a missionary, at prayer-meeting, so always said politely 'the clothes of his lower parts'—Amasa Derry, who carried off four prizes at the Exhibition last fall, with vegetables he stole from Ronnie Bascom's field, while Ronnie didn't get one prize—Jimmy Joe Belle, who came here from Derry Pond yesterday to get some lumber 'to beeld a henhouse for my leetle dog'—old Luke Elliott, who is such a systematic fiend that he even draws up a schedule of the year on New Year's day, and charts down all the days he means to get drunk on—and sticks to it:—they're all interesting and amusing and delightful.

"There, I've proved Mrs. Alex Sawyer to be so completely wrong that I feel quite kindly towards her, even though she did call me a puss.

"Why don't I like being called a puss, when cats are such nice things? And I like being called pussy.

********

"April 28, 19—

"Two weeks ago I sent my very best poem, Wind Song, to a magazine in New York, and to-day it came back with just a little printed slip saying, 'We regret we cannot use this contribution.'

"I feel dreadfully. I suppose I can't really write anything that is any good.

"I can. That magazine will be glad to print my pieces some day!

"I didn't tell Mr. Carpenter I sent it. I wouldn't get any sympathy from him. He says that five years from now will be time enough to begin pestering editors. But I know that some poems I've read in that very magazine were not a bit better than Wind Song.

"I feel more like writing poetry in spring than at any other time. Mr. Carpenter tells me to fight against the impulse. He says spring has been responsible for more trash than anything else in the universe of God.

"Mr. Carpenter's way of talking has a tang to it.

********

"May 1, 19—

"Dean is home. He came to his sister's yesterday and this evening he was here and we walked in the garden, up and down the sundial walk, and talked. It was splendid to have him back, with his mysterious green eyes and his nice mouth.

"We had a long conversation. We talked of Algiers and the transmigration of souls and of being cremated and of profiles—Dean says I have a good profile—'pure Greek.' I always like Dean's compliments.

"'Star o' Morning, how you have grown!' he said. 'I left a child last autumn—and I find a woman!'

"(I will be fourteen in three weeks, and I am tall for my age. Dean seems to be glad of this—quite unlike Aunt Laura who always sighs when she lengthens my dresses, and thinks children grow up too fast.)

"'So goes time by,' I said, quoting the motto on the sundial, and feeling quite sophisticated.

"'You are almost as tall as I am,' he said; and then added bitterly, 'to be sure Jarback Priest is of no very stately height.'

"I have always shrunk from referring to his shoulder in any way, but now I said,

"'Dean, please don't sneer at yourself like that—not with me, at least. I never think of you as Jarback.'

"Dean took my hand and looked right into my eyes as if he were trying to read my very soul.

"'Are you sure of that, Emily? Don't you often wish that I wasn't lame—and crooked?'

"'For your sake I do,' I answered, 'but as far as I am concerned it doesn't make a bit of difference—and never will.'

"'And never will!' Dean repeated the words emphatically. 'If I were sure of that, Emily—if I were only sure of that.'

"'You can be sure of it,' I declared quite warmly. I was vexed because he seemed to doubt it—and yet something in his expression made me feel a little uncomfortable. It suddenly made me think of the time he rescued me from the cliff on Malvern Bay and told me my life belonged to him since he had saved it. I don't like the thought of my life belonging to any one but myself—not any one, even Dean, much as I like him. And in some ways I like Dean better than any one in the world.

"When it got darker the stars came out and we studied them through Dean's splendid new field-glasses. It was very fascinating. Dean knows all about the stars—it seems to me he knows all about everything. But when I said so, he said,

"'There is one secret I do not know—I would give everything else I do know for it—one secret—perhaps I shall never know it. The way to win—the way to win—'

"'What?' I asked curiously.

"'My heart's desire,' said Dean dreamily, looking at a shimmering star that seemed to be hung on the very tip of one of the Three Princesses. 'It seems now as desirable and unobtainable as that gem-like star, Emily. But—who knows?'

"I wonder what it is Dean wants so much.

********

"May 4, 19—

"Dean brought me a lovely portfolio from Paris, and I have copied my favourite verse from The Fringed Gentian on the inside of the cover. I will read it over every day and remember my vow to 'climb the Alpine Path.' I begin to see that I will have to do a good bit of scrambling, though I once expected, I think, to soar right up to 'that far-off goal' on shining wings. Mr. Carpenter has banished that fond dream.

"'Dig in your toes and hang on with your teeth—that's the only way,' he says.

"Last night in bed I thought out some lovely titles for the books I'm going to write in the future—A Lady of High Degree, True to Faith and Vow, Oh, Rare Pale Margaret (I got that from Tennyson), The Caste of Vere de Vere (ditto) and A Kingdom by the Sea.

"Now, if I can only get ideas to match the titles!

"I am writing a story called The House Among the Rowans—also a very good title, I think. But the love talk still bothers me. Everything of the kind I write seems so stiff and silly the minute I write it down that it infuriates me. I asked Dean if he could teach me how to write it properly because he promised long ago that he would, but he said I was too young yet—said it in that mysterious way of his which always seems to convey the idea that there is so much more in his words than the mere sound of them expresses. I wish I could speak so significantly, because it makes you very interesting.

"This evening after school Dean and I began to read The Alhambra over again, sitting on the stone bench in the garden. That book always makes me feel as if I had opened a little door and stepped straight into fairyland.

"'How I would love to see the Alhambra!' I said.

"'We will go to see it sometime—together,' said Dean.

"'Oh, that would be lovely,' I cried. 'Do you think we can ever manage it, Dean?'

"Before Dean could answer I heard Teddy's whistle in Lofty John's bush—the dear little whistle of two short high notes and one long low one, that is our signal.

"'Excuse me—I must go—Teddy's calling me,' I said.

"'Must you always go when Teddy calls?' asked Dean.

"I nodded and explained,

"'He only calls like that when he wants me especially and I have promised I will always go if I possibly can.'

"'I want you especially!' said Dean. 'I came up this evening on purpose to read The Alhambra with you.'

"Suddenly I felt very unhappy. I wanted to stay with Dean dreadfully, and yet I felt as if I must go to Teddy. Dean looked at me piercingly. Then he shut up The Alhambra.

"'Go,' he said.

"I went—but things seemed spoiled, somehow.

********

"May 10, 19—

"I have been reading three books Dean lent me this week. One was like a rose garden—very pleasant, but just a little too sweet. And one was like a pine wood on a mountain—full of balsam and tang—I loved it, and yet it filled me with a sort of despair. It was written so beautifully—I can never write like that, I feel sure. And one—it was just like a pigsty. Dean gave me that one by mistake. He was very angry with himself when he found it out—angry and distressed.

"'Star—Star—I would never have given you a book like that—my confounded carelessness—forgive me. That book is a faithful picture of one world—but not your world, thank God—nor any world you will ever be a citizen of. Star, promise me you will forget that book.'

"'I'll forget it if I can,' I said.

"But I don't know if I can. It was so ugly. I have not been so happy since I read it. I feel as if my hands were soiled somehow and I couldn't wash them clean. And I have another queer feeling, as if some gate had been shut behind me, shutting me into a new world I don't quite understand or like, but through which I must travel.

"To-night I tried to write a description of Dean in my Jimmy-book of character sketches. But I didn't succeed. What I wrote seemed like a photograph—not a portrait. There is something in Dean that is beyond me.

"Dean took a picture of me the other day with his new camera, but he wasn't pleased with it.

"'It doesn't look like you,' he said, 'but of course one can never photograph starlight.'

"Then he added, quite sharply, I thought,

"'Tell that young imp of a Teddy Kent to keep your face out of his pictures. He has no business to put you into every one he draws.'

"'He doesn't!' I cried. 'Why, Teddy never made but the one picture of me—the one Aunt Nancy stole.'

"I said it quite viciously and unashamed, for I've never forgiven Aunt Nancy for keeping that picture.

"'He's got something of you in every picture,' said Dean stubbornly—'your eyes—the curve of your neck—the tilt of your head—your personality. That's the worst—I don't mind your eyes and curves so much, but I won't have that cub putting a bit of your soul into everything he draws. Probably he doesn't know he's doing it—which makes it all the worse.'

"'I don't understand you,' I said, quite haughtily. 'But Teddy is wonderful—Mr. Carpenter says so.'

"'And Emily of New Moon echoes it! Oh, the kid has talent—he'll do something some day if his morbid mother doesn't ruin his life. But let him keep his pencil and brush off my property.'

"Dean laughed as he said it. But I held my head high. I am not anybody's 'property,' not even in fun. And I never will be.

********

"May 12, 19—

"Aunt Ruth and Uncle Wallace and Uncle Oliver were all here this afternoon. I like Uncle Oliver, but I am not much fonder of Aunt Ruth and Uncle Wallace than I ever was. They held some kind of family conclave in the parlour with Aunt Elizabeth and Aunt Laura. Cousin Jimmy was allowed in but I was excluded, although I feel perfectly certain that it had something to do with me. I think Aunt Ruth didn't get her own way, either, for she snubbed me continually all through supper, and said I was growing weedy! Aunt Ruth generally snubs me and Uncle Wallace patronizes me. I prefer Aunt Ruth's snubs because I don't have to look as if I liked them. I endured them to a certain point, and then the lid flew off. Aunt Ruth said to me,

"'Em'ly, don't contradict,' just as she might have spoken to a mere child. I looked her right in the eyes and said coldly,

"'Aunt Ruth, I think I am too old to be spoken to in that fashion now.'

"'You are not too old to be very rude and impertinent,' said Aunt Ruth, with a sniff, 'and if I were in Elizabeth's place I would give you a sound box on the ear, Miss.'

"I hate to be Em'ly'd and Miss'd and sniffed at! It seems to me that Aunt Ruth has all the Murray faults, and none of their virtues.

"Uncle Oliver's son Andrew came with him and is going to stay for a week. He is four years older than I am.

********

"May 19, 19—

"This is my birthday. I am fourteen years old today. I wrote a letter 'From myself at fourteen to myself at twenty-four,' sealed it up and put it away in my cupboard, to be opened on my twenty-fourth birthday. I made some predictions in it. I wonder if they will have come to pass when I open it.

"Aunt Elizabeth gave me back all Father's books today. I was so glad. It seems to me that a part of Father is in those books. His name is in each one in his own handwriting, and the notes he made on the margins. They seem like little bits of letters from him. I have been looking over them all the evening, and Father seems so near to me again, and I feel both happy and sad.

"One thing spoiled the day for me. In school, when I went up to the blackboard to work a problem, everybody suddenly began to titter. I could not imagine why. Then I discovered that some one had pinned a sheet of foolscap to my back, on which was printed in big, black letters: 'Emily Byrd Starr, Authoress of The Four-Legged Duck.' They laughed more than ever when I snatched it off and threw it in the coal-scuttle. It infuriates me when anyone ridicules my ambitions like that. I came home angry and sore. But when I had sat on the steps of the summer-house and looked at one of Cousin Jimmy's big purple pansies for five minutes all my anger went away. Nobody can keep on being angry if she looks into the heart of a pansy for a little while.

"Besides, the time will come when they will not laugh at me!

"Andrew went home yesterday. Aunt Elizabeth asked me how I liked him. She never asked me how I liked anyone before—my likings were not important enough. I suppose she is beginning to realize that I am no longer a child.

"I said I thought he was good and kind and stupid and uninteresting.

"Aunt Elizabeth was so annoyed she would not speak to me the whole evening. Why? I had to tell the truth. And Andrew is.

********

"May 21, 19—

"Old Kelly was here to-day for the first time this spring, with a load of shining new tins. He brought me a bag of candies as usual—and teased me about getting married, also as usual. But he seemed to have something on his mind, and when I went to the dairy to get him the drink of milk he had asked for, he followed me.

"'Gurrl dear,' he said mysteriously. 'I met Jarback Praste in the lane. Does he be coming here much?'

"I cocked my head at the Murray angle.

"'If you mean Mr. Dean Priest,' I said, 'he comes often. He is a particular friend of mine.'

"Old Kelly shook his head.

"'Gurrl dear—I warned ye—niver be after saying I didn't warn ye. I towld ye the day I took ye to Praste Pond niver to marry a Praste. Didn't I now?'

"'Mr. Kelly, you're too ridiculous,' I said—angry and yet feeling it was absurd to be angry with Old Jock Kelly. 'I'm not going to marry anybody. Mr. Priest is old enough to be my father, and I am just a little girl he helps in her studies.'

"Old Kelly gave his head another shake.

"'I know the Prastes, gurrl dear—and when they do be after setting their minds on a thing ye might as well try to turn the wind. This Jarback now—they tell me he's had his eye on ye iver since he fished ye up from the Malvern rocks—he's just biding his time till ye get old enough for coorting. They tell me he's an infidel, and it's well known that whin he was being christened he rached up and clawed the spectacles off av the minister. So what wud ye ixpect? I nadn't be telling ye he's lame and crooked—ye can see that for yerself. Take foolish Ould Kelly's advice and cut loose while there's time. Now, don't be looking at me like the Murrays, gurrl dear. Shure, and it's for your own good I do be spaking.'

"I walked off and left him. One couldn't argue with him over such a thing. I wish people wouldn't put such ideas into my mind. They stick there like burrs. I won't feel as comfortable with Dean for weeks now, though I know perfectly well every word Old Kelly said was nonsense.

"After Old Kelly went away I came up to my room and wrote a full description of him in a Jimmy-book.

"Ilse has got a new hat trimmed with clouds of blue tulle, and red cherries, with big blue tulle bows under the chin. I did not like it and told her so. She was furious and said I was jealous and hasn't spoken to me for two days. I thought it all over. I knew I was not jealous, but I concluded I had made a mistake. I will never again tell anyone a thing like that. It was true but it was not tactful.

"I hope Ilse will have forgiven me by to-morrow. I miss her horribly when she is offended with me. She's such a dear thing and so jolly, and splendid, when she isn't vexed.

"Teddy is a little squiffy with me, too, just now. I think it is because Geoff North walked home with me from prayer-meeting last Wednesday night. I hope that is the reason. I like to feel that I have that much power over Teddy.

"I wonder if I ought to have written that down. But it's true.

"If Teddy only knew it, I have been very unhappy and ashamed over that affair. At first, when Geoff singled me out from all the girls, I was quite proud of it. It was the very first time I had had an escort home, and Geoff is a town boy, very handsome and polished, and all the older girls in Blair Water are quite foolish about him. So I sailed away from the church door with him, feeling as if I had grown up all at once. But we hadn't gone far before I was hating him. He was so condescending. He seemed to think I was a simple little country girl who must be quite overwhelmed with the honour of his company.

"And that was true at first! That was what stung me. To think I had been such a little fool!

"He kept saying, 'Really, you surprise me,' in an affected, drawling kind of way, whenever I made a remark. And he bored me. He couldn't talk sensibly about anything. Or else he wouldn't try to with me. I was quite savage by the time we got to New Moon. And then that insufferable creature asked me to kiss him!

"I drew myself up—oh, I was Murray clear through at that moment, all right. I felt I was looking exactly like Aunt Elizabeth.

"'I do not kiss young men,' I said disdainfully.

"Geoff laughed and caught my hand.

"'Why, you little goose, what do you suppose I came home with you for?' he said.

"I pulled my hand away from him, and walked into the house. But before I did that, I did something else.

"I slapped his face!

"Then I came up to my room and cried with shame over being insulted, and having been so undignified in resenting it. Dignity is a tradition of New Moon, and I felt that I had been false to it.

"But I think I 'surprised' Geoff North in right good earnest!

********

"May 24, 19—

"Jennie Strang told me to-day that Geoff North told her brother that I was 'a regular spitfire' and he had had enough of me.

"Aunt Elizabeth has found out that Geoff came home with me, and told me to-day that I would not be 'trusted' to go alone to prayer-meeting again.

********

"May 25, 19—

"I am sitting here in my room at twilight. The window is open and the frogs are singing of something that happened very long ago. All along the middle garden walk the Gay Folk are holding up great fluted cups of ruby and gold and pearl. It is not raining now, but it rained all day—a rain scented with lilacs. I like all kinds of weather and I like rainy days—soft, misty, rainy days when the Wind Woman just shakes the tops of the spruces gently; and wild, tempestuous, streaming rainy days. I like being shut in by the rain—I like to hear it thudding on the roof, and beating on the panes and pouring off the eaves, while the Wind Woman skirls like a mad old witch in the woods, and through the garden.

"Still, if it rains when I want to go anywhere I growl just as much as anybody!

"An evening like this always makes me think of that spring Father died, three years ago, and that dear little, old house down at Maywood. I've never been back since. I wonder if anyone is living in it now. And if Adam-and-Eve and the Rooster Pine and the Praying Tree are just the same. And who is sleeping in my old room there, and if anyone is loving the little birches and playing with the Wind Woman in the spruce barrens. Just as I wrote the words 'spruce barrens' an old memory came back to me. One spring evening, when I was eight years old, I was running about the barrens playing hide-and-seek with the Wind Woman, and I found a little hollow between two spruces that was just carpeted with tiny, bright-green leaves, when everything else was still brown and faded. They were so beautiful that the flash came as I looked at them—it was the very first time it ever came to me. I suppose that is why I remember those little green leaves so distinctly. No one else remembers them—perhaps no one else ever saw them. I have forgotten other leaves, but I remember them every spring and with each remembrance I feel again the wonder-moment they gave me."

Chapter 3 In the Watches of the Night

Some of us can recall the exact time in which we reached certain milestones on life's road—the wonderful hour when we passed from childhood to girlhood—the enchanted, beautiful—or perhaps the shattering and horrible—hour when girlhood was suddenly womanhood—the chilling hour when we faced the fact that youth was definitely behind us—the peaceful, sorrowful hour of the realization of age. Emily Starr never forgot the night when she passed the first milestone, and left childhood behind her for ever.

Every experience enriches life and the deeper such an experience, the greater the richness it brings. That night of horror and mystery and strange delight ripened her mind and heart like the passage of years.

It was a night early in July. The day had been one of intense heat. Aunt Elizabeth had suffered so much from it that she decided she would not go to prayer-meeting. Aunt Laura and Cousin Jimmy and Emily went. Before leaving Emily asked and obtained Aunt Elizabeth's permission to go home with Ilse Burnley after meeting, and spend the night. This was a rare treat. Aunt Elizabeth did not approve of all-night absences as a general thing.

But Dr. Burnley had to be away, and his housekeeper was temporarily laid up with a broken ankle. Ilse had asked Emily to come over for the night, and Emily was to be permitted to go. Ilse did not know this—hardly hoped for it, in fact—but was to be informed at prayer-meeting. If Ilse had not been late Emily would have told her before meeting "went in," and the mischances of the night would probably have been averted; but Ilse, as usual, was late, and everything else followed in course.

Emily sat in the Murray pew, near the top of the church by the window that looked out into the grove of fir and maple that surrounded the little white church. This prayer-meeting was not the ordinary weekly sprinkling of a faithful few. It was a "special meeting," held in view of the approaching communion Sunday, and the speaker was not young, earnest Mr. Johnson, to whom Emily always liked to listen, in spite of her blunder at the Ladies' Aid Supper but an itinerant evangelist lent by Shrewsbury for one night. His fame brought out a churchful of people, but most of the audience declared afterwards that they would much rather have heard their own Mr. Johnson. Emily looked at him with her level, critical gaze, and decided that he was oily and unspiritual. She heard him through a prayer, and thought,

"Giving God good advice, and abusing the devil isn't praying."

She listened to his discourse for a few minutes and made up her mind that he was blatant and illogical and sensational, and then proceeded, coolly, to shut mind and ears to him and disappear into dreamland—something which she could generally do at will when anxious to escape from discordant realities.

Outside, moonlight was still sifting in a rain of silver through the firs and maples, though an ominous bank of cloud was making up in the north-west, and repeated rumblings of thunder came on the silent air of the hot summer night—a windless night for the most part, though occasionally a sudden breath that seemed more like a sigh than a breeze brushed through the trees, and set their shadows dancing in weird companies. There was something strange about the night in its mingling of placid, accustomed beauty with the omens of rising storm, that intrigued Emily, and she spent half the time of the evangelist's address in composing a mental description of it for her Jimmy-book. The rest of the time she studied such of the audience as were within her range of vision.

This was something that Emily never wearied of, in public assemblages, and the older she grew the more she liked it. It was fascinating to study those varied faces, and speculate on the histories written in mysterious hieroglyphics over them. They had all their inner, secret lives, those men and women, known to no one but themselves and God. Others could only guess at them, and Emily loved this game of guessing. At times it seemed veritably to her that it was more than guessing—that in some intense moments she could pass into their souls and read therein hidden motives and passions that were, perhaps, a mystery even to their possessors. It was never easy for Emily to resist the temptation to do this when the power came, although she never yielded to it without an uneasy feeling that she was committing trespass. It was quite a different thing from soaring on the wings of fancy into an ideal world of creation—quite different from the exquisite, unearthly beauty of "the flash;" neither of these gave her any moments of pause or doubt. But to slip on tiptoe through some momentarily unlatched door, as it were, and catch a glimpse of masked, unuttered, unutterable things in the hearts and souls of others, was something that always brought, along with its sense of power, a sense of the forbidden—a sense even of sacrilege. Yet Emily did not know if she would ever be able to resist the allure of it—she had always peered through the door and seen the things before she realized that she was doing it. They were nearly always terrible things. Secrets are generally terrible. Beauty is not often hidden—only ugliness and deformity.

"Elder Forsyth would have been a persecutor in old times," she thought. "He has the face of one. This very minute he is loving the preacher because he is describing hell, and Elder Forsyth thinks all his enemies will go there. Yes, that is why he is looking pleased. I think Mrs. Bowes flies off on a broomstick o' nights. She looks it. Four hundred years ago she would have been a witch, and Elder Forsyth would have burned her at the stake. She hates everybody—it must be terrible to hate everybody—to have your soul full of hatred. I must try to describe such a person in my Jimmy-book. I wonder if hate has driven all love out of her soul, or if there is a little bit left in it for any one or any thing. If there is it might save her. That would be a good idea for a story. I must jot it down before I go to bed—I'll borrow a bit of paper from Ilse. No—here's a bit in my hymn-book. I'll write it now.

"I wonder what all these people would say if they were suddenly asked what they wanted most, and had to answer truthfully. I wonder how many of these husbands and wives would like a change? Chris Farrar and Mrs. Chris would—everybody knows that. I can't think why I feel so sure that James Beatty and his wife would, too. They seem to be quite contented with each other—but once I saw her look at him when she did not know anyone was watching—oh, it seemed to me I saw right into her soul, through her eyes, and she hated him—and feared him. She is sitting there now, beside him, little and thin and dowdy, and her face is grey and her hair is faded—but she, herself, is one red flame of rebellion. What she wants most is to be free from him—or just to strike back once. That would satisfy her.

"There's Dean—I wonder what brought him to prayer-meeting? His face is very solemn, but his eyes are mocking Mr. Sampson—what's that Mr. Sampson's saying?—oh, something about the wise virgins. I hate the wise virgins—I think they were horribly selfish. They might have given the poor foolish ones a little oil. I don't believe Jesus meant to praise them any more than He meant to praise the unjust steward—I think he was just trying to warn foolish people that they must not be careless, and foolish, because if they were, prudent, selfish folks would never help them out. I wonder if it's very wicked to feel that I'd rather be outside with the foolish ones trying to help and comfort them, than inside feasting with the wise ones. It would be more interesting, too.

"There's Mrs. Kent and Teddy. Oh, she wants something terribly—I don't know what it is but it's something she can never get, and the hunger for it goads her night and day. That is why she holds Teddy so closely—I know. But I don't know what it is that makes her so different from other women. I can never get a peep into her soul—she shuts every one out—the door is never unlatched.

"What do I want most? It is to climb the Alpine Path to the very top,

> "And write upon its shining scroll

> A woman's humble name.

"We're all hungry. We all want some bread of life—but Mr. Sampson can't give it to us. I wonder what he wants most? His soul is so muggy I can't see into it. He has a lot of sordid wants—he doesn't want anything enough to dominate him. Mr. Johnson wants to help people and preach truth—he really does. And Aunt Janey wants most of all to see the whole heathen world Christianized. Her soul hasn't any dark wishes in it. I know what Mr. Carpenter wants—his one lost chance again. Katherine Morris wants her youth back—she hates us younger girls because we are young. Old Malcolm Strang just wants to live—just one more year—always just one more year—just to live—just not to die. It must be horrible to have nothing to live for except just to escape dying. Yet he believes in heaven—he thinks he will go there. If he could see my flash just once he wouldn't hate the thought of dying so, poor old man. And Mary Strang wants to die—before something terrible she is afraid of tortures her to death. They say it's cancer. There's Mad Mr. Morrison up in the gallery—we all know what he wants—to find his Annie. Tom Sibley wants the moon, I think—and knows he can never get it—that's why people say he's not all there. Amy Crabbe wants Max Terry to come back to her—nothing else matters to her.

"I must write all these things down in my Jimmy-book to-morrow. They are fascinating—but, after all, I like writing of beautiful things better. Only—these things have a tang beautiful things don't have some way. Those woods out there—how wonderful they are in their silver and shadow. The moonlight is doing strange things to the tombstones—it makes even the ugly ones beautiful. But it's terribly hot—it is smothering here—and those thunder-growls are coming nearer. I hope Ilse and I will get home before the storm breaks. Oh, Mr. Sampson, Mr. Sampson, God isn't an angry God—you don't know anything about Him if you say that—He's sorrowful, I'm sure, when we're foolish and wicked, but He doesn't fly into tantrums. Your God and Ellen Greene's God are exactly alike. I'd like to get up and tell you so, but it isn't a Murray tradition to sass back in church. You make God ugly—and He's beautiful. I hate you for making God ugly, you fat little man."

Whereupon Mr. Sampson, who had several times noted Emily's intent, probing gaze, and thought he was impressing her tremendously with a sense of her unsaved condition, finished with a final urgent whoop of entreaty, and sat down. The audience in the close, oppressive atmosphere of the crowded, lamplit church gave an audible sigh of relief, and scarcely waited for the hymn and benediction before crowding out to purer air. Emily, caught in the current, and parted from Aunt Laura, was swept out by way of the choir door to the left of the pulpit. It was some time before she could disentangle herself from the throng and hurry around to the front where she expected to meet Ilse. Here was another dense, though rapidly thinning crowd, in which she found no trace of Ilse. Suddenly Emily noticed that she did not have her hymn-book. Hastily she dashed back to the choir door. She must have left her hymn-book in the pew—and it would never do to leave it there. In it she had placed for safe-keeping a slip of paper on which she had furtively jotted down some fragmentary notes during the last hymn—a rather biting description of scrawny Miss Potter in the choir—a couple of satiric sentences regarding Mr. Sampson himself—and a few random fancies which she desired most of all to hide because there was in them something of dream and vision which would have made the reading of them by alien eyes a sacrilege.

Old Jacob Banks, the sexton, a little blind and more than a little deaf, was turning out the lamps as she went in. He had reached the two on the wall behind the pulpit. Emily caught her hymn-book from the rack—her slip of paper was not in it. By the faint gleam of light, as Jacob Banks turned out the last lamp, she saw it on the floor, under the seat of the pew in front. She kneeled down and reached after it. As she did so Jacob went out and locked the choir door. Emily did not notice his going—the church was still faintly illuminated by the moon that as yet outrode the rapidly climbing thunder-heads. That was not the right slip of paper after all—where could it be?—oh, here, at last. She caught it up and ran to the door which would not open.

For the first time Emily realized that Jacob Banks had gone—that she was alone in the church. She wasted time trying to open the door—then in calling Mr. Banks. Finally she ran down the aisle into the front porch. As she did so she heard the last buggy turn gridingly at the gate and drive away: at the same time the moon was suddenly swallowed up by the black clouds and the church was engulfed in darkness—close, hot, smothering, almost tangible darkness. Emily screamed in sudden panic—beat on the door—frantically twisted the handle—screamed again. Oh, everybody could not have gone—surely somebody would hear her! "Aunt Laura"—"Cousin Jimmy"—"Ilse"—then finally in a wail of despair—"Oh, Teddy—Teddy!"

A blue-white stream of lightning swept the porch, followed by a crash of thunder. One of the worst storms in Blair Water annals had begun—and Emily Starr was locked alone in the dark church in the maple woods—she, who had always been afraid of thunderstorms with a reasonless, instinctive fear which she could never banish and only partially control.

She sank, quivering, on a step of the gallery stairs, and huddled there in a heap. Surely some one would come back when it was discovered she was missing. But would it be discovered? Who would miss her? Aunt Laura and Cousin Jimmy would suppose she was with Ilse, as had been arranged. Ilse, who had evidently gone, believing that Emily was not coming with her, would suppose she had gone home to New Moon. Nobody knew where she was—nobody would come back for her. She must stay here in this horrible, lonely, black, echoing place—for now the church she knew so well and loved for its old associations of Sunday-school and song and homely faces of dear friends had become a ghostly, alien place full of haunting terrors. There was no escape. The windows could not be opened. The church was ventilated by transom-like panes near the top of them, which were opened and shut by pulling a wire. She could not get up to them, and she could not have got through them if she had.

She cowered down on the step, shuddering from head to foot. By now the thunder and lightning were almost incessant: rain blew against the windows, not in drops but sheets, and intermittent volleys of hail bombarded them. The wind had risen suddenly with the storm and shrieked around the church. It was not her old dear friend of childhood, the bat-winged, misty "Wind Woman," but a legion of yelling witches. "The Prince of the Power of the Air rules the wind," she had heard Mad Mr. Morrison say once. Why should she think of Mad Mr. Morrison now? How the windows rattled as if demon riders of the storm were shaking them! She had heard a wild tale of some one hearing the organ play in the empty church one night several years ago. Suppose it began playing now! No fancy seemed too grotesque or horrible to come true. Didn't the stairs creak? The blackness between the lightnings was so intense that it looked thick. Emily was frightened of it touching her and buried her face in her lap.

Presently, however, she got a grip on herself and began to reflect that she was not living up to Murray traditions. Murrays were not supposed to go to pieces like this. Murrays were not foolishly panicky in thunder-storms. Those old Murrays sleeping in the private graveyard across the pond would have scorned her as a degenerate descendant. Aunt Elizabeth would have said that it was the Starr coming out in her. She must be brave: after all, she had lived through worse hours than this—the night she had eaten of Lofty John's poisoned apple*—the afternoon she had fallen over the rocks of Malvern Bay. This had come so suddenly on her that she had been in the throes of terror before she could brace herself against it. She must pick up. Nothing dreadful was going to happen to her—nothing worse than staying all night in the church. In the morning she could attract the attention of some one passing. She had been here over an hour now, and nothing had happened to her—unless indeed her hair had turned white, as she understood hair sometimes did. There had been such a funny, crinkly, crawly feeling at the roots of it at times. Emily held out her long braid, ready for the next flash. When it came she saw that her hair was still black. She sighed with relief and began to chirk up. The storm was passing. The thunder-peals were growing fainter and fewer, though the rain continued to fall and the wind to drive and shriek around the church, whining through the big keyhole eerily.

* See Emily of New Moon.

Emily straightened her shoulders and cautiously let down her feet to a lower step. She thought she had better try to get back into the church. If another cloud came up, the steeple might be struck—steeples were always getting struck, she remembered: it might come crashing down on the, porch right over her. She would go in and sit down in the Murray pew: she would be cool and sensible and collected: she was ashamed of her panic—but it had been terrible.

All around her now was a soft, heavy darkness, still with that same eerie sensation of something you could touch, born perhaps of the heat and humidity of the July night. The porch was so small and narrow—she would not feel so smothered and oppressed in the church.

She put out her hand to grasp a stair rail and pull herself to her cramped feet. Her hand touched—not the stair rail—merciful heavens, what was it?—something hairy—Emily's shriek of horror froze on her lips—padding footsteps passed down the steps beside her; a flash of lightning came and at the bottom of the steps was a huge black dog, which had turned and was looking up at her before he was blotted out in the returning darkness. Even then for a moment she saw his eyes blazing redly at her, like a fiend's.

Emily's hair roots began to crawl and crinkle again—a very large, very cold caterpillar began to creep slowly up her spine. She could not have moved a muscle had life depended on it. She could not even cry out. The only thing she could think of at first was the horrible demon hound of the Manx Castle in Peveril of the Peak. For a few minutes her terror was so great that it turned her physically sick. Then, with an effort which was unchild-like in its determination—I think it was at that moment Emily wholly ceased to be a child—she recovered her self-control. She would not yield to fear—she set her teeth and clenched her trembling hands; she would be brave—sensible. That was only a commonplace Blair Water dog which had followed its owner—some rapscallion boy—into the gallery, and got itself left behind. The thing had happened before. A flash of lightning showed her that the porch was empty. Evidently the dog had gone into the church. Emily decided that she would stay where she was. She had recovered from her panic, but she did not want to feel the sudden touch of a cold nose or a hairy flank in the darkness. She could never forget the awfulness of the moment when she had touched the creature.

It must be all of twelve o'clock now—it had been ten when the meeting came out. The noise of the storm had for the most part died away. The drive and shriek of the wind came occasionally, but between its gusts there was a silence, broken only by the diminishing raindrops. Thunder still muttered faintly and lightning came at frequent intervals, but of a paler, gentler flame—not the rending glare that had seemed to wrap the very building in intolerable blue radiance, and scorch her eye. Gradually her heart began to beat normally. The power of rational thought returned. She did not like her predicament, but she began to find dramatic possibilities in it. Oh, what a chapter for her diary—or her Jimmy-book—and, beyond it, for that novel she would write some day! It was a situation expressly shaped for the heroine—who must, of course, be rescued by the hero. Emily began constructing the scene—adding to it—intensifying it—hunting for words to express it. This was rather—interesting—after all. Only she wished she knew just where the dog was. How weirdly the pale lightning gleamed on the gravestones which she could see through the porch window opposite her! How strange the familiar valley beyond looked in the recurrent illuminations! How the wind moaned and sighed and complained—but it was her own Wind Woman again. The Wind Woman was one of her childish fancies that she had carried over into maturity, and it comforted her now, with a sense of ancient companionship. The wild riders of the storm were gone—her fairy friend had come back. Emily gave a sigh that was almost of contentment. The worst was over—and really, hadn't she behaved pretty well? She began to feel quite self-respecting again.

All at once Emily knew she was not alone!

How she knew it she could not have told. She had heard nothing—seen nothing—felt nothing: and yet she knew, beyond all doubt or dispute, that there was a Presence in the darkness above her on the stairs.

She turned and looked up. It was horrible to look, but it was less horrible to feel that—Something—was in front of you than that it was behind you. She stared with wildly dilated eyes into the darkness, but she could see nothing. Then—she heard a low laugh above her—a laugh that almost made her heart stop beating—the very dreadful, inhuman laughter of the unsound in mind. She did not need the lightning flash that came then to tell her that Mad Mr. Morrison was somewhere on the stairs above her. But it came—she saw him—she felt as if she were sinking in some icy gulf of coldness—she could not even scream.

The picture of him, etched on her brain by the lightning, never left her. He was crouched five steps above her, with his gray head thrust forward. She saw the frenzied gleam of his eyes—the fang-like yellow teeth exposed in a horrible smile—the long, thin, blood-red hand outstretched towards her, almost touching her shoulder.

Sheer panic shattered Emily's trance. She bounded to her feet with a piercing scream of terror.

"Teddy! Teddy! Save me!" she shrieked madly.

She did not know why she called for Teddy—she did not even realize that she had called him—she only remembered it afterwards, as one might recall the waking shriek in a nightmare—she only knew that she must have help—that she would die if that awful hand touched her. It must not touch her.

She made a mad spring down the steps, rushed into the church, and up the aisle. She must hide before the next flash came—but not in the Murray pew. He might look for her there. She dived into one of the middle pews and crouched down in its corner on the floor. Her body was bathed in an ice-cold perspiration. She was wholly in the grip of uncontrollable terror. All she could think of was that it must not touch her—that blood-red hand of the mad old man.

Moments passed that seemed like years. Presently she heard footsteps—footsteps that came and went yet seemed to approach her slowly. Suddenly she knew what he was doing. He was going into every pew, not waiting for the lightning, to feel about for her. He was looking for her, then—she had heard that sometimes he followed young girls, thinking they were Annie. If he caught them he held them with one hand and stroked their hair and faces fondly with the other, mumbling foolish, senile endearments. He had never harmed anyone, but he had never let anyone go until she was rescued by some other person. It was said that Mary Paxton of Derry Pond had never been quite the same again; her nerves never recovered from the shock.

Emily knew that it was only a question of time before he would reach the pew where she crouched—feeling about with those hands! All that kept her senses in her frozen body was the thought that if she lost consciousness those hands would touch her—hold her—caress her. The next lightning flash showed him entering the adjoining pew. Emily sprang up and out and rushed to the other side of the church. She hid again: he would search her out, but she could again elude him: this might go on all night: a madman's strength would outlast hers: at last she might fall exhausted and he would pounce on her.

For what seemed hours to Emily, this mad game of hide-and-seek lasted. It was in reality about half an hour. She was hardly a rational creature at all, any more than her demented pursuer. She was merely a crouching, springing, shrieking thing of horror. Time after time he hunted her out with his cunning, implacable patience. The last time she was near one of the porch doors, and in desperation she sprang through it and slammed it in his face. With the last ounce of her strength she tried to hold the knob from turning in his grasp. And as she strove she heard—was she dreaming?—Teddy's voice calling to her from the steps outside the outer door.

"Emily—Emily—are you there?"

She did not know how he had come—she did not wonder—she only knew he was there!

"Teddy, I'm locked in the church!" she shrieked—"and Mad Mr. Morrison is here—oh—quick—quick—save me—save me!"

"The key of the door is hanging up in there on a nail at the right side!" shouted Teddy. "Can you get it and unlock the door? If you can't I'll smash the porch window."

The clouds broke at that moment and the porch was filled with moonlight. In it she saw plainly the big key, hanging high on the wall beside the front door. She dashed at it and caught it as Mad Mr. Morrison wrenched upon the door and sprang into the porch, his dog behind him. Emily unlocked the outer door and stumbled out into Teddy's arms just in time to elude that outstretched, blood-red hand. She heard Mad Mr. Morrison give a wild, eerie shriek of despair as she escaped him.

Sobbing, shaking, she clung to Teddy.

"Oh, Teddy, take me away—take me quick—oh, don't let him touch me, Teddy—don't let him touch me!"

Teddy swung her behind him and faced Mad Mr. Morrison on the stone step.

"How dare you frighten her so?" he demanded angrily.

Mad Mr. Morrison smiled deprecatingly in the moonlight. All at once he was not wild or violent—only a heart-broken old man who sought his own.

"I want Annie," he mumbled. "Where is Annie? I thought I had found her in there. I only wanted to find my beautiful Annie."

"Annie isn't here," said Teddy, tightening his hold on Emily's cold little hand.

"Can you tell me where Annie is?" entreated Mad Mr. Morrison, wistfully. "Can you tell me where my dark-haired Annie is?"

Teddy was furious with Mad Mr. Morrison for frightening Emily, but the old man's piteous entreaty touched him—and the artist in him responded to the values of the picture presented against the background of the white, moonlit church. He thought he would like to paint Mad Mr. Morrison as he stood there, tall and gaunt, in his gray "duster" coat, with his long white hair and beard, and the ageless quest in his hollow, sunken eyes.

"No—no—I don't know where she is," he said gently, "but I think you will find her sometime."

Mad Mr. Morrison sighed.

"Oh, yes. Sometime I will overtake her. Come, my dog, we will seek her."

Followed by his old black dog he went down the steps, across the green and down the long, wet, tree-shadowed road. So going, he passed out of Emily's life. She never saw Mad Mr. Morrison again. But she looked after him understandingly, and forgave him. To himself he was not the repulsive old man he seemed to her; he was a gallant young lover seeking his lost and lovely bride. The pitiful beauty of his quest intrigued her, even in the shaking reaction from her hour of agony.

"Poor Mr. Morrison," she sobbed, as Teddy half led, half carried her to one of the old flat gravestones at the side of the church.

They sat there until Emily recovered composure and managed to tell her tale—or the outlines of it. She felt she could never tell—perhaps not even write in a Jimmy-book—the whole of its racking horror. That was beyond words.

"And to think," she sobbed, "that the key was there all the time. I never knew it."

"Old Jacob Banks always locks the front door with its big key on the inside, and then hangs it up on that nail," said Teddy. "He locks the choir door with a little key, which he takes home. He has always done that since the time, three years ago, when he lost the big key and was weeks before he found it."

Suddenly Emily awoke to the strangeness of Teddy's coming.

"How did you happen to come, Teddy?"

"Why, I heard you call me," he said. "You did call me, didn't you?"

"Yes," said Emily, slowly, "I called for you when I saw Mad Mr. Morrison first. But, Teddy, you couldn't have heard me—you couldn't. The Tansy Patch is a mile from here."

"I did hear you," said Teddy, stubbornly. "I was asleep and it woke me up. You called 'Teddy, Teddy, save me'—it was your voice as plain as I ever heard it in my life. I got right up and hurried on my clothes and came here as fast as I could."

"How did you know I was here?"

"Why—I don't know," said Teddy confusedly. "I didn't stop to think—I just seemed to know you were in the church when I heard you calling me, and I must get here as quick as I could. It's—it's all—funny," he concluded lamely.

"It's—it's—it frightens me a little." Emily shivered. "Aunt Elizabeth says I have second sight—you remember Ilse's mother? Mr. Carpenter says I'm psychic—I don't know just what that means, but think I'd rather not be it."

She shivered again. Teddy thought she was cold and, having nothing else to put around her, put his arm—somewhat tentatively, since Murray pride and Murray dignity might be outraged. Emily was not cold in body, but a little chill had blown over her soul. Something supernatural—some mystery she could not understand—had brushed too near her in that strange summoning. Involuntarily she nestled a little closer to Teddy, acutely conscious of the boyish tenderness she sensed behind the aloofness of his boyish shyness. Suddenly she knew that she liked Teddy better than anybody—better even than Aunt Laura or Ilse or Dean.

Teddy's arm tightened a little.

"Anyhow, I'm glad I got here in time," he said. "If I hadn't that crazy old man might have frightened you to death."

They sat so for a few minutes in silence. Everything seemed very wonderful and beautiful—and a little unreal. Emily thought she must be in a dream, or in one of her own wonder tales. The storm had passed, and the moon was shining clearly once more. The cool fresh air was threaded with beguiling voices—the fitful voice of raindrops falling from the shaken boughs of the maple woods behind them—the freakish voice of the Wind Woman around the white church—the far-off, intriguing voice of the sea—and, still finer and rarer, the little, remote, detached voices of the night. Emily heard them all, more with the ears of her soul than of her body, it seemed, as she had never heard them before. Beyond were fields and groves and roads, pleasantly suggestive and elusive, as if brooding over elfish secrets in the moonlight. Silver-white daisies were nodding and swaying all over the graveyard above graves remembered and graves forgotten. An owl laughed delightfully to itself in the old pine. At the magical sound Emily's mystic flash swept over her, swaying her like a strong wind. She felt as if she and Teddy were all alone in a wonderful new world, created for themselves only out of youth and mystery and delight. They seemed, themselves, to be part of the faint, cool fragrance of the night, of the owl's laughter, of the daisies blowing in the shadowy air.

As for Teddy, he was thinking that Emily looked very sweet in the pale moonshine, with her fringed, mysterious eyes and the little dark love-curls clinging to her ivory neck. He tightened his arm a little more—and still Murray pride and Murray dignity made not a particle of protest.

"Emily," whispered Teddy, "you're the sweetest girl in the world."

The words have been said so often by so many millions of lads to so many millions of lasses, that they ought to be worn to tatters. But when you hear them for the first time, in some magic hour of your teens, they are as new and fresh and wondrous as if they had just drifted over the hedges of Eden. Madam, whoever you are, and however old you are, be honest, and admit that the first time you heard those words on the lips of some shy sweetheart, was the great moment of your life. Emily thrilled, from the crown of her head to the toes of her slippered feet, with a sensation of hitherto unknown and almost terrifying sweetness—a sensation that was to sense what her "flash" was to spirit. It is quite conceivable and not totally reprehensible that the next thing that happened might have been a kiss. Emily thought Teddy was going to kiss her: Teddy knew he was: and the odds are that he wouldn't have had his face slapped as Geoff North had had.

But it was not to be. A shadow that had slipped in at the gate and drifted across the wet grass, halted beside them, and touched Teddy's shoulder, just as he bent his glossy black head. He looked up, startled. Emily looked up. Mrs. Kent was standing there, bareheaded, her scarred face clear in the moonlight, looking at them tragically.

Emily and Teddy both stood up so suddenly that they seemed veritably to have been jerked to their feet. Emily's fairy world vanished like a dissolving bubble. She was in a different world altogether—an absurd, ridiculous one. Yes, ridiculous. Everything had suddenly become ridiculous. Could anything be more ridiculous than to be caught here with Teddy, by his mother, at two o'clock at night—what was that horrid word she had lately heard for the first time?—oh, yes, spooning—that was it—spooning on George Horton's eighty-year-old tombstone? That was how other people would look at it. How could a thing be so beautiful one moment and so absurd the next? She was one horrible scorch of shame from head to feet. And Teddy—she knew Teddy was feeling like a fool.

To Mrs. Kent it was not ridiculous—it was dreadful. To her abnormal jealousy the incident had the most sinister significance. She looked at Emily with her hollow, hungry eyes.

"So you are trying to steal my son from me," she said. "He is all I have and you are trying to steal him."

"Oh, Mother, for goodness' sake, be sensible!" muttered Teddy.

"He—he tells me to be sensible," Mrs. Kent echoed tragically to the moon. "Sensible!"

"Yes, sensible," said Teddy angrily. "There's nothing to make such a fuss about. Emily was locked in the church by accident and Mad Mr. Morrison was there, too, and nearly frightened her to death. I came to let her out and we were sitting here for a few minutes until she got over her fright and was able to walk home. That's all."

"How did you know she was here?" demanded Mrs. Kent.

How indeed! This was a hard question to answer. The truth sounded like a silly, stupid invention. Nevertheless, Teddy told it.

"She called me," he said bluntly.

"And you heard her—a mile away. Do you expect me to believe that?" said Mrs. Kent, laughing wildly.

Emily had by this time recovered her poise. At no time in her life was Emily Byrd Starr ever disconcerted for long. She drew herself up proudly and in the dim light, in spite of her Starr features, she looked much as Elizabeth Murray must have looked thirty years before.

"Whether you believe it or not it is true, Mrs. Kent," she said haughtily. "I am not stealing your son—I do not want him—he can go."

"I'm going to take you home first, Emily," said Teddy. He folded his arms and threw back his head and tried to look as stately as Emily. He felt that he was a dismal failure at it, but it imposed on Mrs. Kent. She began to cry.

"Go—go," she said. "Go to her—desert me."

Emily was thoroughly angry now. If this irrational woman persisted in making a scene, very well: a scene she should have.

"I won't let him take me home," she said, freezingly. "Teddy, go with your mother."

"Oh, you command him, do you? He must do as you tell him, must he?" cried Mrs. Kent, who now seemed to lose all control of herself. Her tiny form was shaken with violent sobs. She wrung her hands.

"He shall choose for himself," she cried. "He shall go with you—or come with me. Choose, Teddy, for yourself. You shall not do her bidding. Choose!"

She was fiercely dramatic again, as she lifted her hand and pointed it at poor Teddy.

Teddy was feeling as miserable and impotently angry as any male creature does when two women are quarrelling about him in his presence. He wished himself a thousand miles away. What a mess to be in—and to be made ridiculous like this before Emily! Why on earth couldn't his mother behave like other boys' mothers? Why must she be so intense and exacting? He knew Blair Water gossip said she was "a little touched." He did not believe that. But—but—well, in short here was a mess. You came back to that every time. What on earth was he to do? If he took Emily home he knew his mother would cry and pray for days. On the other hand to desert Emily after her dreadful experience in the church, and leave her to traverse that lonely road alone was unthinkable. But Emily now dominated the situation. She was very angry, with the icy anger of old Hugh Murray that did not dissipate itself in idle bluster, but went straight to the point.

"You are a foolish, selfish woman," she said, "and you will make your son hate you."

"Selfish! You call me selfish," sobbed Mrs. Kent. "I live only for Teddy—he is all I have to live for."

"You are selfish." Emily was standing straight: her eyes had gone black: her voice was cutting: "the Murray look" was on her face, and in the pale moonlight it was a rather fearsome thing. She wondered, as she spoke, how she knew certain things. But shedid know them. "You think you love him—it is only yourself you love. You are determined to spoil his life. You won't let him go to Shrewsbury because it will hurt you to let him go away from you. You have let your jealousy of everything he cares for eat your heart out, and master you. You won't bear a little pain for his sake. You are not a mother at all. Teddy has a great talent—every one says so. You ought to be proud of him—you ought to give him his chance. But you won't—and some day he will hate you for it—yes, he will."

"Oh, no, no," moaned Mrs. Kent. She held up her hands as if to ward off a blow and shrank back against Teddy. "Oh, you are cruel—cruel. You don't know what I've suffered—you don't know what ache is always at my heart. He is all I have—all. I have nothing else—not even a memory. You don't understand. I can't—I can't give him up."

"If you let your jealousy ruin his life you will lose him," said Emily inexorably. She had always been afraid of Mrs. Kent. Now she was suddenly no longer afraid of her—she knew she would never be afraid of her again. "You hate everything he cares for—you hate his friends and his dog and his drawing. You know you do. But you can't keep him that way, Mrs. Kent. And you will find out when it is too late. Good night, Teddy. Thank you again for coming to my rescue. Good night, Mrs. Kent."

Emily's good night was very final. She turned and stalked across the green without another glance, holding her head high. Down the wet road she marched—at first very angry—then, as anger ebbed, very tired—oh, horribly tired. She discovered that she was fairly shaking with weariness. The emotions of the night had exhausted her, and now—what to do? She did not like the idea of going home to New Moon. Emily felt that she could never face outraged Aunt Elizabeth if the various scandalous doings of this night should be discovered. She turned in at the gate of Dr. Burnley's house. His doors were never locked. Emily slipped into the front hall as the dawn began to whiten in the sky and curled up on the lounge behind the staircase. There was no use in waking Ilse. She would tell her the whole story in the morning and bind her to secrecy—all, at least, except one thing Teddy had said, and the episode of Mrs. Kent. One was too beautiful, and the other too disagreeable to be talked about. Of course, Mrs. Kent wasn't like other women and there was no use in feeling too badly about it. Nevertheless, she had wrecked and spoiled a frail, beautiful something—she had blotched with absurdity a moment that should have been eternally lovely. And she had, of course, made poor Teddy feel like an ass. That, in the last analysis, was what Emily really could not forgive.

As she drifted off to sleep she recalled drowsily the events of that bewildering night—her imprisonment in the lonely church—the horror of touching the dog—the worse horror of Mad Mr. Morrison's pursuit—her rapture of relief at Teddy's voice—the brief little moonlit idyll in the graveyard—of all places for an idyll!—the tragi-comic advent of poor morbid, jealous Mrs. Kent.

"I hope I wasn't too hard on her," thought Emily as she drifted into slumber. "If I was I'm sorry. I'll have to write it down as a bad deed in my diary. I feel somehow as if I'd grown up all at once tonight—yesterday seems years away. But what a chapter it will make for my diary. I'll write it all down—all but Teddy's saying I was the sweetest girl in the world. That's too—dear—to write. I'll—just—remember it."

Chapter 4 "As Ithers See Us"

Emily had finished mopping up the kitchen floor at New Moon and was absorbed in sanding it in the beautiful and complicated "herring-bone pattern" which was one of the New Moon traditions, having been invented, so it was said, by great-great-grandmother of "Here I stay" fame. Aunt Laura had taught Emily how to do it and Emily was proud of her skill. Even Aunt Elizabeth had condescended to say that Emily sanded the famous pattern very well, and when Aunt Elizabeth praised, further comment was superfluous. New Moon was the only place in Blair Water where the old custom of sanding the floor was kept up; other housewives had long ago begun to use "new-fangled" devices and patent cleaners for making their floors white. But Dame Elizabeth Murray would none of such; as long as she reigned at New Moon so long should candles burn and sanded floors gleam whitely. Aunt Elizabeth had exasperated Emily somewhat by insisting that the latter should put on Aunt Laura's old "Mother Hubbard" while she was scrubbing the floor. A "Mother Hubbard," it may be necessary to explain to those of this generation, was a loose and shapeless garment which served principally as a sort of morning gown and was liked in its day because it was cool and easily put on. Aunt Elizabeth, it is quite unnecessary to say, disapproved entirely of Mother Hubbards. She considered them the last word in slovenliness, and Laura was never permitted to have another one. But the old one, though its original pretty lilac tint had faded to a dingy white, was still too "good" to be banished to the rag bag; and it was this which Emily had been told to put on.

Emily detested Mother Hubbards as heartily as Aunt Elizabeth herself did. They were worse, she considered, even than the hated "baby aprons" of her first summer at New Moon. She knew she looked ridiculous in Aunt Laura's Mother Hubbard, which came to her feet, and hung in loose, unbeautiful lines from her thin young shoulders; and Emily had a horror of being "ridiculous." She had once shocked Aunt Elizabeth by coolly telling her that she would "rather be bad than ridiculous." Emily had scrubbed and sanded with one eye on the door, ready to run if any stranger loomed up while she had on that hideous wrapper.

It was not, as Emily very well knew, a Murray tradition to "run." At New Moon you stood your ground, no matter what you had on—the presupposition being that you were always neatly and properly habited for the occupation of the moment. Emily recognized the propriety of this, yet was, nevertheless, foolish and young enough to feel that she would die of shame if seen by anyone in Aunt Laura's Mother Hubbard. It was neat—it was clean—but it was "ridiculous." There you were!

Just as Emily finished sanding and turned to place her can of sand in the niche under the kitchen mantel, where it had been kept from time immemorial, she heard strange voices in the kitchen yard. A hasty glimpse through the window revealed to her the owners of the voices—Miss Beulah Potter, and Mrs. Ann Cyrilla Potter, calling, no doubt, in regard to the projected Ladies' Aid Social. They were coming to the back door as was the Blair Water custom when running in to see your neighbours, informally or on business; they were already past the gay platoons of hollyhocks with which Cousin Jimmy had flanked the stone path to the dairy, and of all the people in Blair Water and out of it they were the two whom Emily would least want to see her in any ridiculous plight whatever. Without stopping to think, she darted into the boot closet and shut the door.

Mrs. Ann Cyrilla knocked twice at the kitchen door, but Emily did not budge. She knew Aunt Laura was weaving in the garret—she could hear the dull thud of the treadles overhead—but she thought Aunt Elizabeth was concocting pies in the cook-house and would see or hear the callers. She would take them into the sitting-room and then Emily could make her escape. And on one thing she was determined—they should not see her in that Mother Hubbard. Miss Potter was a thin, venomous, acidulated gossip who seemed to dislike everybody in general and Emily in particular; and Mrs. Ann Cyrilla was a plump, pretty, smooth, amiable gossip who, by very reason of her smoothness and amiability, did more real harm in a week than Miss Potter did in a year. Emily distrusted her even while she could not help liking her. She had so often heard Mrs. Ann Cyrilla make smiling fun of people, to whose "faces" she had been very sweet and charming, and Mrs. Ann Cyrilla, who had been one of the "dressy Wallaces" from Derry Pond, was especially fond of laughing over the peculiarities of other people's clothes.

Again the knock came—Miss Potter's this time, as Emily knew by the staccato raps. They were getting impatient. Well, they might knock there till the cows come home, vowed Emily. She would not go to the door in the Mother Hubbard. Then she heard Perry's voice outside explaining that Miss Elizabeth was away in the stumps behind the barn picking raspberries, but that he would go and get her if they would walk in and make themselves at home. To Emily's despair, this was just what they did. Miss Potter sat down with a creak and Mrs. Ann Cyrilla with a puff, and Perry's retreating footsteps died away in the yard. Emily realized that she was by way of being in a plight. It was very hot and stuffy in the tiny boot closet—where Cousin Jimmy's working clothes were kept as well as boots. She hoped earnestly that Perry would not be long in finding Aunt Elizabeth.