Page:Emily Climbs.pdf/73

 ments any pleasanter to hear. What business had she to call Aunt Elizabeth mean? Aunt Elizabeth mean. Emily was suddenly very angry with Miss Potter. She, herself, often criticised Aunt Elizabeth in secret, but it was intolerable that an outsider should do it. And that little sneer at the Murrays! Emily could imagine the shrewish glint in Miss Potter’s eye as she uttered it. As for the candles

“The Murrays can see farther by candlelight than can by sunlight, Miss Potter,” thought Emily disdainfully—or at least as disdainfully as it is possible to think when a river of perspiration is running down your back, and you have nothing to breathe but the aroma of old leather.

“I suppose it’s because of the expense that she won’t send Emily to school any longer than this year,” said Mrs. Ann Cyrilla. “Most folks think she ought to give her a year at Shrewsbury, anyhow—you’d think she would for pride’s sake, if nothing else. But I am told she has decided against it.”

Emily’s heart sank. She hadn’t been quite sure till now that Aunt Elizabeth wouldn’t send her to Shrewsbury. The tears sprang to her eyes—burning, stinging tears of disappointment.

“Emily ought to be taught something to earn a living by,” said Miss Potter. “Her Father left nothing.”

“He left ,” said Emily below her breath, clenching her fists. Anger dried up her tears.

“Oh,” said Mrs. Ann Cyrilla, laughing with tolerant derision, “I hear that Emily is going to make a living by writing stories—not only a living but a fortune, I believe.”

She laughed again. The idea was so exquisitely ridiculous. Mrs. Ann Cyrilla hadn’t heard anything so funny for a long time.

“They say she wastes half her time scribbling trash,” agreed Miss Potter. “If I was her Aunt Elizabeth I would soon cure her of that nonsense.”