Page:Emily Climbs.pdf/118

 ful of girls because poem hadn’t been taken. I suppose Tom Blake had told her about it.

“‘You mustn’t feel badly about it, Miss Starr. Tom said it wasn’t half bad but of course not up to ’s standard. Likely in another year or two you'll be able to get in. Keep on trying.’

“‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I’m not feeling badly. Why should I? I didn’t make “beam” rhyme with “green” in my poem. If I had I’d be feeling very badly indeed.’

“Evelyn coloured to her eyes.

“Don’t show your disappointment so plainly, ,’ she said.

“But I noticed she dropped the subject after that.

“For my own satisfaction I wrote a criticism of Evelyn’s poem in my Jimmy-book as soon as I came from school. I modelled it on Macaulay’s essay on poor Robert Montgomery, and I got so much fun out of it that I didn’t feel sore and humiliated any more. I must show it to Mr. Carpenter when I go home. He'll chuckle over it.

“November 6, 19—

“I noticed this evening in glancing over my journal that I soon gave up recording my good and bad deeds. I suppose it was because so many of my doings were half-and-half. I never could decide in what class they belonged.

“We are expected to answer roll call with a quotation on Monday mornings. This morning I repeated a verse from my own poem. When I left Assembly to go down to the Prep classroom Miss Aylmer, the Vice-Principal, stopped me.

“‘Emily, that was a beautiful verse you gave at roll call. Where did you get it? And do you know the whole poem?’

“I was so elated I could hardly answer,

“‘Yes, Miss Aylmer,’ demurely.