Page:Emily of New Moon by L. M. Montgomery.pdf/187

 wretchedly sure. Aunt Elizabeth was certain to side with Miss Brownell. Emily shrank from the impending ordeal with all the dread of a sensitive, fine strung nature facing humiliation. She would not have been afraid of justice; but she knew at the bar of Aunt Elizabeth and Miss Brownell she would not have justice.

“And I can’t write Father about it,” she thought, her little breast heaving. The shame of it all was too deep and intimate to be written out, and so she could find no relief for her pain.

They did not have supper at New Moon in winter time until Cousin Jimmy had finished his chores and was ready to stay in for the night. So Emily was left undisturbed in the garret.

From the dormer window she looked down on a dreamland scene that would ordinarily have delighted her. There was a red sunset behind the white, distant hills, shining through the dark trees like a great fire; there was a delicate blue tracery of bare branch shadows all over the crusted garden; there was a pale, ethereal alpenglow all over the southeastern sky; and presently there was a little, lovely new moon in the silvery arch over Lofty John’s bush. But Emily found no pleasure in any of them.

Presently she saw Miss Brownell coming up the lane, under the white arms of the birches, with her mannish stride.

“If my father was alive,” said Emily, looking down at her, “you would go away from this place with a flea in your ear.”

The minutes passed, each seeming very long to Emily. At last Aunt Laura came up.

“Your Aunt Elizabeth wants you to come down to the kitchen, Emily.”

Aunt Laura’s voice was kind and sad. Emily fought down a sob. She hated to have Aunt Laura think she had been naughty, but she could not trust herself to