Page:Emily of New Moon by L. M. Montgomery.pdf/108

 doing a sum in long division, dropped her pencil and listened entranced. She had never heard the before—but now she heard it—and  it—the rose-red splendour falling on those storied, snowy summits and ruined castles—the lights that never were on land or sea streaming over the lakes—she heard the wild echoes flying through the purple valleys and the misty passes—the mere sound of the words seemed to make an exquisite echo in her soul—and when Miss Brownell came to “Horns of elf-land faintly blowing” Emily trembled with delight. She was snatched out of herself. She forgot everything but the magic of that unequalled line—she sprang from her seat, knocking her slate to the floor with a clatter, she rushed up the aisle, she caught Miss Brownell’s arm.

“Oh, teacher,” she cried with passionate earnestness, “read that line over again—oh, read that line over again!”

Miss Brownell, thus suddenly halted in her elocutionary display, looked down into a rapt, uplifted face where great purplish-grey eyes were shining with the radiance of a divine vision—and Miss Brownell was angry. Angry with this breach of her strict discipline—angry with this unseenlyunseemly [sic] display of interest in a third class atom whose attention should have been focused on long division. Miss Brownell shut her book and shut her lips and gave Emily a resounding slap on her face.

“Go right back to your seat and mind your own business, Emily Starr,” said Miss Brownell, her cold eyes malignant with her fury.

Emily, thus dashed to earth, moved back to her seat in a daze. Her smitten cheek was crimson, but the wound was in her heart. One moment ago in the seventh heaven—and now —pain, humiliation, misunderstanding! She could not bear it. What had she done to deserve it? She had never been slapped in her life before. The degradation and the injustice ate into her soul. She