Lucy Montgomery - Emily of New Moon

"I'm going to keep it," Aunt Nancy said, grinning and shaking her gold tassels. "Some day that picture will be worth something as the early effort of a famous artist.”

"I only lent it to you — I told you I only lent it to you," said Emily indignantly.

"I'm an unscrupulous old demon," said Aunt Nancy coolly. "That is what the Priests all call me behind my back. Don't they, Caroline?

May as well have the game as the name. I happen to have a fancy for that picture, that's all. I'm going to frame it and hang it here in my parlour. But I'll leave it to you in my will — that and the chessy-cat and the gazing-ball and my gold ear-rings. Nothing else — I'm not going to leave you a cent of my money — never count on that.”

"I don't want it," said Emily loftily. "I'm going to earn heaps of money for myself. But it isn't fair of you to keep my picture. It was given to me.”

"I never was fair," said Aunt Nancy. "Was I, Caroline?”

"No," said Caroline shrewishly.

"You see. Now don't make a fuss, Emily. You've been a very good child but I feel that I've done my duty by you for this year. Go back to New Moon and when Elizabeth won't let you do things tell her I always let you. I don't know if it will do any good but try it. Elizabeth, like every one else related to me, is always wondering what I'm going to do with my money.”

Cousin Jimmy came over for Emily. How glad she was to see his kind face with its gentle, elfish eyes and forked beard again! But she felt very badly when she turned to Dean.

"If you like I'll kiss you good-bye," she said chokily.

Emily did not like kissing people. She did not really want to kiss Dean but she liked him so much she thought she ought to extend all the courtesies to him.

Dean looked down smiling into her face, so young, so pure, so softly curved.

"No, I don't want you to kiss me — yet. And our first kiss mustn't have the flavour of good-bye. It would be a bad omen. Star o' Morning, I'm sorry you're going. But I'll see you again before long. My oldest sister lives in Blair Water, you know, and I feel a sudden access of brotherly affection towards her. I seem to see myself visiting her very often henceforth. In the meantime remember you have promised to write me every week. And I'll write you.”

"Nice fat letters," coaxed Emily. "I love fat letters.”

"Fat! They'll be positively corpulent, Star. Now, I'm not even going to SAY good-bye. Let's make a pact, Star. We'll never SAY good-bye to each other. We'll just smile and go.”

Emily made a gallant effort — smiled — and went. Aunt Nancy and Caroline returned to the back parlour and their cribbage. Dean Priest whistled for Tweed and went to the bay shore. He was so lonely that he laughed at himself.

Emily and Cousin Jimmy had so much to talk of that the drive home seemed very short.

New Moon was white in the evening sunshine which also lay with exceeding mellowness on the grey old barns. The Three Princesses, shooting up against the silvery sky, were as remote and princessly as ever. The old gulf was singing away down over the fields.

Aunt Laura came running out to meet them, her lovely blue eyes shining with pleasure. Aunt Elizabeth was in the cookhouse preparing supper and only shook hands with Emily, but looked a trifle less grim and stately than usual, and she had made Emily's favourite cream-puffs for supper. Perry was hanging about barefooted and sunburned, to tell her all the gossip of kittens and calves and little pigs and the new foal. Ilse came swooping over, and Emily discovered she had forgotten how vivid Ilse was — how brilliant her amber eyes, how golden her mane of spun-silk hair, looking more golden than ever under the bright blue silk tam Mrs Simms had bought her in Shrewsbury. As an article of dress, that loud tam made Laura Murray's eyes and sensibilities ache, but its colour certainly did set off Ilse's wonderful hair. She engulfed Emily in a rapturous embrace and quarrelled bitterly with her ten minutes later over the fact that Emily refused to give her Saucy Sal's sole surviving kitten.

"I ought to have it, you doddering hyena," stormed Ilse. "It's as much mine as yours, pig! Our old barn cat is its father.”

"Such talk is not decent," said Aunt Elizabeth, pale with horror.

"And if you two children are going to quarrel over that kitten I'll have it drowned — remember that.”

Ilse was finally appeased by Emily's offering to let her name the kitten and have a half-interest in it. Ilse named it Daffodil.

Emily did not think this suitable, since, from the fact of Cousin Jimmy referring to it as Little Tommy, she suspected it was of the sterner sex. But rather than again provoke Aunt Elizabeth's wrath by discussing tabooed subjects, she agreed.

"I can call it Daff," she thought. "That sounds more MASCULINE.”

The kitten was a delicate bit of striped greyness that reminded Emily of her dear lost Mikes. And it smelled so nice — of warmth and clean furriness, with whiffs of the clover hay where Saucy Sal had made her mother-nest.

After supper she heard Teddy's whistle in the old orchard — the same enchanting call. Emily flew out to greet him — after all, there was nobody just like Teddy in the world. They had an ecstatic scamper up to the Tansy Patch to see a new puppy that Dr Burnley had given Teddy. Mrs Kent did not seem very glad to see Emily — she was colder and more remote than ever, and she sat and watched the two children playing with the chubby little pup with a smouldering fire in her dark eyes that made Emily vaguely uncomfortable whenever she happened to glance up and encounter it. Never before had she sensed Mrs Kent's dislike for her so keenly as that night.

"Why doesn't your mother like me?" she asked Teddy bluntly, when they carried little Leo to the barn for the night.

"Because I do," said Teddy briefly. "She doesn't like ANYTHING I like. I'm afraid she'll poison Leo very soon. I — I wish she wasn't so fond of me," he burst out, in the beginning of a revolt against this abnormal jealousy of love, which he felt rather than understood to be a fetter that was becoming galling. "She says she won't let me take up Latin and Algebra this year — you know Miss Brownell said I might — because I'm not to go to college. She says she can't bear to part from me — ever. I don't care about the Latin and stuff — but I want to learn to be an artist — I want to go away some day to the schools where they teach that. She won't let me — she hates my pictures now because she thinks I like them better than her. I DON'T — I love Mother — she's awful sweet and good to me every other way. But she thinks I do — and she's burned some of them. I know she has. They're missing from the barn wall and I can't find them anywhere. If she does anything to Leo — I'll — I'll HATE her.”

"Tell her that," said Emily coolly, with some of the Murray shrewdness coming uppermost in her. "She doesn't know that YOU know she poisoned Smoke and Buttercup. Tell her you do know it and that if she does anything to Leo you won't love her any more.

She'll be so frightened of your NOT loving her that she won't meddle with Leo — I KNOW. Tell her gently — don't hurt her feelings — but TELL her. It will," concluded Emily, with a killing imitation of Aunt Elizabeth delivering an ultimatum, "be better for all concerned.”

"I believe I will," said Teddy, much impressed. "I CAN'T have Leo disappear like my cats did — he's the only dog I've ever had and I've always wanted a dog. Oh, Emily, I'm glad you're back!”

It was very nice to be told this — especially by Teddy. Emily went home to New Moon happily. In the old kitchen the candles were lighted and their flames were dancing in the winds of the August night blowing through door and window.