Page:Emily of New Moon by L. M. Montgomery.pdf/219

 and brown too, but she was the tiniest woman imaginable, with snow-white, silky hair, mild blue eyes, and pink cheeks.

“Isn’t she the sweetest thing in the way av mothers?” asked Father Cassidy. “I keep her to look at. Av course—” Father Cassidy dropped his voice to a pig’s whisper—“there’s something odd about her. I’ve known that woman to stop right in the middle av housecleaning, and go off and spend an afternoon in the woods. Like yourself, I’m thinking she has some truck with fairies.”

Mrs. Cassidy smiled, kissed Emily, said she must go out and finish her preserving, and trotted off.

“Now you sit right down here, Elf, and be human for ten minutes and we’ll have a friendly snack.”

Emily hungry—a nice comfortable feeling she hadn’t experienced for a fortnight. Mrs. Cassidy’s plum cake was all her reverend son claimed, and the cream cow seemed to be no myth.

“What do you think av me now?” asked Father Cassidy suddenly, finding Emily’s eyes fixed on him speculatively.

Emily blushed. She had been wondering if she dared ask another favour of Father Cassidy.

“I think you are awfully good,” she said.

“I awfully good,” agreed Father Cassidy. “I’m so good that I’ll do what you want me to do—for I feel there’s something else you want me to do.”

“I’m in a scrape and I’ve been in it all summer. You see”—Emily was very sober—“I am a poetess.”

“Holy Mike! That serious. I don’t know if I can do much for you. How long have you been that way?”

“Are you making fun of me?” asked Emily gravely.

Father Cassidy swallowed something besides plum cake.

“The saints forbid! It’s only that I’m rather overcome. To be after entertaining a lady av New Moon—and an elf—and a poetess all in one is a bit too much