Page:Emily Climbs.pdf/92

 right good will, the slim, pale thing sitting before her on the ottoman. The creature was so slight—and young—and indomitable. For over three years Elizabeth Murray had tried to cure Emily of this foolishness of writing and for over three years she, who had never failed in anything before, had failed in this. One couldn’t starve her into submission—and nothing short of it would seem to be efficacious.

Elizabeth knitted furiously in her vexation, and Emily sat motionless, struggling with her bitter disappointment and sense of injustice. She was determined she would not cry before Aunt Elizabeth, but it was hard to keep the tears back. She wished Daff wouldn’t purr with such resounding satisfaction, as if everything were perfectly delicious from a grey cat’s point of view. She wished Aunt Elizabeth would tell her to go. But Aunt Elizabeth only knitted furiously and said nothing. It all seemed rather nightmarish. The wind was rising and the rain began to drive against the pane, and the dead-and-gone Murrays looked down accusingly from their dark frames. had no sympathy with flashes and Jimmy-books and Alpine paths—with the pursuit of unwon, alluring divinities. Yet Emily couldn’t help thinking, under all her disappointment, what an excellent setting it would make for some tragic scene in a novel.

The door opened and Cousin Jimmy slipped in. Cousin Jimmy knew what was in the wind and had been coolly and deliberately listening outside the door. knew Emily would never promise such a thing—he had told Elizabeth so at the family council ten days before. was only simple Jimmy Murray, but he understood what sensible Elizabeth Murray could not understand.

“What is wrong?” he asked, looking from one to the other.

“Nothing is wrong,” said Aunt Elizabeth haughtily. “I have offered Emily an education and she has refused it. She is free to do so, of course.”

“No one can be free who has a thousand ancestors,”