Page:Emily of New Moon by L. M. Montgomery.pdf/90

 “He was so beautiful and clever and good. He hadn’t a fault—so of course he couldn’t live. They say there never was such a handsome child in the connection. And lovable—everybody loved him. He has been dead for ninety years—not a Murray living to-day ever saw him—and yet we talk about him at family gatherings—he’s more real than lots of living people. So you see, Emily, he must have been an extraordinary child—but it ended in that—” Cousin Jimmy waved his hand towards the grassy grave and the white, prim headstone.

“I wonder,” thought Emily, “if any one will remember ninety years after I’m dead.”

“This old yard is nearly full,” reflected Cousin Jimmy. “There’s just room in yonder corner for Elizabeth and Laura—and me. None for you, Emily.”

“I don’t want to be buried here,” flashed Emily. “I think it’s splendid to have a graveyard like this in the family—but am going to be buried in Charlottetown graveyard with Father and Mother. But there’s one thing worries me Cousin Jimmy, do think I’m likely to die of consumption?”

Cousin Jimmy looked judicially down into her eyes.

“No,” he said, “no, Miss Puss. You’ve got enough life in to carry you far. You aren’t meant for death.”

“I feel that, too,” said Emily, nodding. “And now, Cousin Jimmy, is that house over there disappointed?”

“Which one?—oh, Fred Clifford’s house. Fred Clifford began to build that house thirty years ago. He was to be married and his lady picked out the plan. And when the house was just as far along as you see she jilted him, Emily—right in the face of day she jilted him. Never another nail was driven in the house. Fred went out to British Columbia. He’s living there yet—married and happy. But he won’t sell that lot to any one—so I reckon he feels the sting yet.”