Page:Emily of New Moon by L. M. Montgomery.pdf/220

 for a humble praste like meself. Have another slice av cake and tell me all about it.”

“It’s like this—I’m writing an epic.”

Father Cassidy suddenly leaned over and gave Emily’s wrist a little pinch.

“I just wanted to see if you were real,” he explained. “Yes—yes, you’re writing an epic—go on. I think I’ve got my second wind now.”

“I began it last spring. I called it first but now I’ve changed it to. Don’t you think that’s a better title?”

“Much better.”

“I’ve got three cantos done, and I can’t get any further because there’s something I don’t know and can’t find out. I’ve been so worried about it.”

“What is it?”

“My epic,” said Emily, diligently devouring plum cake, “is about a very beautiful high-born girl who was stolen away from her real parents when she was a baby and brought up in a woodcutter’s hut.”

“One av of the seven original plots in the world,” murmured Father Cassidy.

“What?”

“Nothing. Just a bad habit av thinking aloud. Go on.”

“She had a lover of high degree but his family did not want him to marry her because she was only a woodcutter’s daughter—”

“Another of the seven plots—excuse me.”

“—so they sent him away to the Holy land on a crusade and word came back that he was killed and then Editha—her name was Editha—went into a convent—”

Emily paused for a bite of plum cake and Father Cassidy took up the strain.

“And now her lover comes back very much alive, though covered with Paynim scars, and the secret av her