Page:Emily of New Moon by L. M. Montgomery.pdf/35

Rh no way to talk to me, after all I’ve done for you. You’d better not let the Murrays hear you talking like that or they won’t want much to do with you. The black curse indeed! Well, here’s gratitude!”

Emily’s eyes smarted. She was just a lonely, solitary little creature and she felt very friendless. But she was not at all remorseful for what she had said to Ellen and she was not going to pretend she was.

“Come you here and help me wash these dishes,” ordered Ellen. “It’ll do you good to have something to take up your mind and then you won’t be after putting curses on people who have worked their fingers to the bone for you.”

Emily, with an eloquent glance at Ellen’s hands, went and got the dish towel.

“Your hands are fat and pudgy,” she said. “The bones don’t show at all.”

“Never mind sassing back! It’s awful, with your poor pa dead in there. But if your Aunt Ruth takes you she’ll soon cure you of that.”

“Is Aunt Ruth going to take me?”

“I don’t know, but she ought to. She’s a widow with no chick or child, and well-to-do.”

“I don’t think I want Aunt Ruth to take me,” said Emily deliberately, after a moment’s reflection.

“Well, won’t have the choosing likely. You ought to be thankful to get a home anywhere. Remember you’re not of much importance.”

“I am important to myself,” cried Emily proudly.

“It’ll be some chore to bring up,” muttered Ellen. “Your Aunt Ruth is the one to do it, in my opinion. won’t stand no nonsense. A fine woman she is and the neatest housekeeper on P. E. Island. You could eat off her floor.”

“I don’t want to eat off her floor. I don’t care if a floor is dirty as long as the tablecloth is clean.”

“Well, her tablecloths are clean too, I reckon. She’s