Page:Emily of New Moon by L. M. Montgomery.pdf/273

 bigger than New Moon and the furniture is much handsomer but it is harder to feel acquainted with it.

“There are many interesting things in this house. I love to look at them. There is a Jakobite glass on a stand in the parlor. It was a glass an old ansester of the Priests had long ago in Scotland and it has a thistle and a rose on it and they used it to drink Prince Charlie’s health with and for no other purpose. It is a very valewable airloom and Aunt Nancy prizes it highly. And she has a pickled snake in a big glass jar in the china cabinet. It is hideous but fascinating. I shiver when I see it but yet I go to look at it every day. Something seems to drag me to it. Aunt Nancy has a bureau in her room with glass knobs and a vase shaped like a green fish sitting up on end and a Chinese draggon with a curly tail, and a case of sweet little stuffed humming birds and a sand-glass for boiling eggs by and a framed wreath made out of the hair of all the dead Priests and lots of old dagerrotipes. But the thing I like the best of all is a great silvery shining ball hanging from the lamp in the parlour. It reflects everything like a little fairy world. Aunt Nancy calls it a gazing-ball, and says that when she is dead I am to have it. I wish she hadn’t said that because I want the ball so much that I can’t help wondering when she will die and that makes me feel wicked. I am to have the chessy-cat door knocker and her gold earrings, too. These are Murray airlooms. Aunt Nancy says the Priest airlooms must go to the Priests. I will like the chessy-cat but I don’t want the earrings. I’d rather not have people notice my ears.

“I have to sleep alone. I feel frightened but I think if I could get over being frightened I’d like it. I don’t mind the swallows now. It’s just being alone so far away from any one. But it is lovely to be able to stretch out your legs just as you like and not have anybody scold you for skwirming. And when I wake up in the night