Page:Emily Climbs.pdf/46

 “‘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.

“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 today 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 today 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,