to her! Was I to be always scrubbing floors with my rheumatiz? Get off upstairs and you’d better lie down awhile.”
“I’m going upstairs, but I’m not going to lie down,” said Emily. “I’ve got a lot of thinking to do.”
“There’s one thing I’d advise you to do,” said Ellen, determined to lose no chance of doing her duty, “and that is to kneel down and pray to God to make you a good and respectful and grateful child.”
Emily paused at the foot of the stairs and looked back.
“Father said I wasn’t to have anything to do with your God,” she said gravely.
Ellen gasped foolishly, but could not think of any reply to this heathenish statement. She appealed to the universe.
“Did any one ever hear the like!”
“I know what your God is like,” said Emily. “I saw His picture in that Adam-and-Eve book of yours. He has whiskers and wears a nightgown. I don’t like Him. But I like Father’s God.”
“And what is your father’s God like, if I may ask?” demanded Ellen sarcastically.
Emily hadn’t any idea what Father’s God was like, but she was determined not to be posed by Ellen.
“He is clear as the moon, fair as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners,” she said triumphantly.
“Well, you’re bound to have the last word, but the Murrays will teach you what’s what,” said Ellen, giving up the argument. “They’re strict Presbyterians and won’t hold by any of your father’s awful notions. Get off upstairs.”
Emily went up to the south room, feeling very desolate.
“There isn’t anybody in the world who loves me now,” she said, as she curled up on her bed by the window. But she was determined she would not cry. The Murrays, who had hated her father, should not see her crying. She felt that she detested them all — except perhaps Aunt Laura. How very big and empty the world had suddenly become. Nothing was interesting any more. It did not matter that the little squat apple-tree between Adam-and-Eve had become a thing of rose-and-snow beauty — that the hills beyond the hollow were of green silk, purple-misted — that the daffodils were out in the garden — that the birches were hung all over with golden tassels — that the Wind Woman was blowing white young clouds across the sky. None of these things had any charm or consolation for her now. In her inexperience she believed they never would have again.
“But I promised Father I’d be brave,” she whispered, clenching her little fists, “and I will. And I won’t let the Murrays see I’m afraid of them — I won’t be afraid of them!”
When the far-off whistle of the afternoon train blew beyond the hills, Emily’s heart began to beat. She clasped her hands and lifted her face.
“Please help me, Father’s God — not Ellen’s God,” she said. “Help me to be brave and not cry before the Murrays.”
Soon after there was the sound of wheels below — and voices — loud, decided voices. Then Ellen came puffing up the stairs with the black dress — a sleazy thing of cheap merino.
“Mrs Hubbard just got it done in time, thanks be. I wouldn’t ‘a’ had the Murrays see you not in black for the world. They can’t say I haven’t done my duty. They’re all here — the New Moon people and Oliver and his wife, your Aunt Addie, and Wallace and his wife, your Aunt Eva, and Aunt Ruth — Mrs Dutton, her name is. There, you’re ready now. Come along.”
“Can’t I put my Venetian beads on?” asked Emily.
“Did ever any mortal! Venetian beads with a mourning dress! Shame on you! Is this a time to be thinking of vanity?”
“It isn’t vanity!” cried Emily. “Father gave me those beads last Christmas — and I want to show the Murrays that I’ve got something!”
“No more of your nonsense! Come along, I say! Mind your manners — there’s a good deal depends on the impression you make on them.”
Emily walked rigidly downstairs before Ellen and into the parlour. Eight people were sitting around it — and she instantly felt the critical gaze of sixteen stranger eyes. She looked very pale and plain in her black dress; the purple shadows left by weeping made her large eyes look too large and hollow. She was desperately afraid, and she knew it — but she would not let the Murrays see it. She held up her head and faced the ordeal before her gallantly.
“This,” said Ellen, turning her around by the shoulder, “is your Uncle Wallace.”
Emily shuddered and put out a cold hand. She did not like Uncle Wallace — she knew that at once — he was black and grim and ugly, with frowning, bristly brows and a stern, unpitying mouth. He had big pouches under his eyes, and carefully-trimmed black sidewhiskers. Emily decided then and there that she did not admire sidewhiskers.
“How do you do, Emily?” he said coldly — and just as coldly he bent forward and kissed her cheek.
A sudden wave of indignation swept over Emily’s soul. How dared he kiss her — he had hated her father and disowned her mother! She would have none of his kisses! Flash-quick, she snatched her handkerchief from her pocket and wiped her outraged cheek.
“Well — well!” exclaimed a disagreeable voice from the other side of the room.
Uncle Wallace looked as if he would like to say a great many things but couldn’t think of them. Ellen, with a grunt of despair, propelled Emily to the next sitter.
“Your Aunt Eva,” she said.
Aunt Eva was sitting huddled up in a shawl. She had the fretful face of the imaginary invalid. She shook hands with Emily and said nothing. Neither did Emily.
“Your Uncle Oliver,” announced Ellen.
Emily rather liked Uncle Oliver’s appearance. He was big and fat and rosy and jolly-looking. She thought she would not mind so much if he kissed her, in spite of his bristly white moustache. But Uncle Oliver had learned Uncle Wallace’s lesson.
“I’ll give you a quarter for a kiss,” he whispered genially. A joke was Uncle Oliver’s idea of being kind and sympathetic, but Emily did not know this, and resented it.
“I don’t sell my kisses,” she said, lifting her head as haughtily as any Murray of them all could do.
Uncle Oliver chuckled and seemed infinitely amused and not a bit offended. But Emily heard a sniff across the room.
Aunt Addie was next. She was as fat and rosy and jolly-looking as her husband and she gave Emily’s cold hand a nice, gentle squeeze.
“How are you, dear?” she said.
That “dear” touched Emily and thawed her a trifle. But the next in turn froze her up instantly again. It was Aunt Ruth — Emily knew it was Aunt Ruth before Ellen said so, and she knew it was Aunt Ruth who had “well — welled” and sniffed. She knew the cold, grey eyes, the prim, dull brown hair, the short, stout figure, the thin, pinched, merciless mouth.
Aunt
