“Old Mr. Wales on the Derry Pond Road is dying of canser. Jennie Strang says his wife has her morning all ready.

“Anyway, I’m glad I’m not invited to Rhoda’s old party. I wouldn’t want to go when Muriel Porter will be there, putting on her airs.”

“I wonder what Aunt Elizabeth would feel like if I was found here dead,” she thought, vindictively.

There is no use in denying it, there are times when I am very proud of Aunt Elizabeth, even if I do not like her.

A ghost from the grave could not have cowed her more speedily.

“I don’t believe you could write poetry,” said Emily—a little disdainfully, it must be admitted. “Teddy can’t—and he’s very clever.”

“Oh,” thought Emily, clenching her hands, “I wish—I wish the bears that ate the naughty children in the Bible would come and eat you.”

I couldn’t write a good letter when I knew Aunt Elizabeth was going to read it. I felt paralized.

“You are a kind of minister, aren’t you?” she asked timidly. She didn’t know whether Father Cassidy would like being called a minister.

“It would have spoiled the garden and broken my heart, Emily,” he told her. “You’re a little darling girl to have prevented it.”

“Cousin Jimmy says that a man in Priest Pond says the end of the world is coming soon. I hope it won’t come till I’ve seen everything in it.

“Don’t mind her—she’s cracked,” he said. “Of course, when I grow up I mean to ask you to marry me but—”

“A whim—a whim. You know what her whims are. Likely by the time Emily got there she’d be quite over it and have no use for her.”

“Aunt Elizabeth was right—novels aren’t fit to read,” she thought. “Oh, I will die here—of fright—I know I will. I know I’m a coward—I can’t be brave.”

“I will write you oftener after this, dear Father. I feel I have been neglecting you.

“Nonsense—if a man can’t look after his wife—if he blinds his own eyes— Mercy on us, child, what is the matter?”

“Will you—will you really?” Emily was very eager. “I’ll be so obliged if you will. I think I could manage everything else very nicely.”

“Oh, I’m not writing novels—yet,” said Emily. “I can’t get enough paper. These are just short stories. And it isn’t wicked—Father liked novels.”

“She’s always lovely when we’re alone,” Teddy had told Emily.

The two ladies of New Moon looked at each other across her bed in dismay—and something like terror.