Page:Emily of New Moon by L. M. Montgomery.pdf/186

 opened the stove door, Emily understood and bounded forward. She caught at the papers and tore them from Miss Brownell’s hand before the latter could tighten her grasp.

“You burn them—you shall not have them,” gasped Emily. She crammed the poems into the pocket of her “baby apron” and faced Miss Brownell in a kind of calm rage. The Murray look was on her face—and although Miss Brownell was not so violently affected by it as Aunt Elizabeth had been, it nevertheless gave her an unpleasant sensation, as of having roused forces with which she dared not tamper further. This tormented child looked quite capable of flying at her, tooth and claw.

“Give me those papers, Emily,”—but she said it rather uncertainly.

“I will not,” said Emily stormily. “They are mine. You have no right to them. I wrote them at recesses—I didn’t break any rules. You”—Emily looked defiantly into Miss Brownell’s cold eyes—“You are an unjust, tyrannical .”

Miss Brownell turned to her desk.

“I am coming up to New Moon to-night to tell your Aunt Elizabeth of this,” she said.

Emily was at first too much excited over saving her precious poetry to pay much heed to this threat. But as her excitement ebbed cold dread flowed in. She knew she had an unpleasant time ahead of her. But at all events they should not get her poems—not one of them, no matter what they did to. As soon as she got home from school she flew to the garret and secreted them on the shelf of the old sofa.

She wanted terribly to cry but she would not. Miss Brownell was coming and Miss Brownell should see her with red eyes. But her heart burned within her. Some sacred temple of her being had been desecrated and shamed. And more was yet to come, she felt