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“She does not aprove of Aunt Laura paying me for washing dishes. I tremble to think what she would say if she knew Cousin Jimmy gave me a whole dollar on the sly last week.

“I wish he had not given me so much. It worrys me. It is an awful responsibility. It will be so diffikult to134 spend it wisely also without Aunt Elizabeth finding out about it. I hope I shall never have a million dollars. I am sure it would crush me utterly. I keep my dollar hid on the shelf with my letters and I put it in an old envelope and wrote on it Cousin Jimmy Murray gave me this so that if I died suddenly and Aunt Elizabeth found it she would know I came by it honestly.”

A near death experience

“As Emily folded up her letter-bill she heard the sound of wheels in the yard below. A moment later Elizabeth and Laura Murray were confronted in the kitchen by a tragic-faced little creature, grasping a guttering candle in one hand and a red letter-bill in the other.

“Emily, what is the matter?” cried Aunt Laura.

“I’m dying,” said Emily solemnly. “I et an apple Lofty John had poisoned for rats. I have only a few minutes to live, Aunt Laura.”

Laura Murray dropped down on the black bench with her hand at her heart. Elizabeth turned as pale as Emily herself.

“Emily, is this some play-acting of yours?” she demanded sternly.

“No,” cried Emily, quite indignantly. “It’s the truth. Do you suppose a dying person would be play-acting? And oh, Aunt Elizabeth, please will you give this letter to Ilse—and please forgive me for being naughty—though I wasn’t always naughty when you thought I was—and don’t let any one see me after I’m dead if I turn black—especially Rhoda Stuart.”

After a Psychic Vision

Emily's convalescence was rather slow. Physically she recovered with normal celerity but a certain spiritual and emotional languor persisted for a time. One cannot go down to the depths of hidden things and scape the penalty

Fighting with your bestie:

Ilse lost her temper at once and went into a true Burnley tantrum. She was very fluent in her rages and the volley of abusive "dictionary words" which she hurled at Emily would have staggered most of the Blair Water Girls. But Emily was too much at home with words to be floored so easily; she grew angry too, but in a cool, dignified, Murray way which was more exasperating than violence.

Spending a night out in the wilderness:

As she walked along she dramatized the night. There was about it a wild, lawless charm that appealed to a certain wild, lawless strain hidden deep in Emily’s nature—the strain of the gypsy and the poet, the genius and the fool.

The Flash:

It had always seemed to Emily, ever since she could remember, that she was very, very near to a world of wonderful beauty. Between it and her hung only a thin curtain; she could never draw the curtain aside- but sometimes, just for a moment, a wind fluttered it and then it was as if she caught a glimpse of the enchanting realm beyond-only a glimpse and heard a note of unearthly music.

Delightful weirdo

Any human companionship, even the dearest and most perfect, would have been alien to her then. She was sufficient unto herself, needing not love nor comradeship nor any human emotion to round out her felicity. Such moments come rarely in any life, but when they do come they are inexpressibly wonderful - as if the finite were for a second infinity - as if humanity were for a space uplifted into divinity - as if all ugliness had vanished, leaving only flawless beauty.

Taking on school bullies

Suddenly a soft, malignant hiss came across the aisle.

“Miss Pridey—Miss Pridey!”

Emily looked across at the girl. Large, steady, purplish-grey eyes gazed into beady, twinkling, black ones—gazed unquailingly—with something in them that cowed and compelled. The black eyes wavered and fell, their owner covering her retreat with another giggle and toss of her short braid of hair

“I can master her,” thought Emily, with a thrill of triumph.

But there is strength in numbers and at noon hour Emily found herself standing alone on the playground82 facing a crowd of unfriendly faces. Children can be the most cruel creatures alive. They have the herd instinct of prejudice against any outsider, and they are merciless in its indulgence. Emily was a stranger and one of the proud Murrays—two counts against her. And there was about her, small and ginghamed and sunbonneted as she was, a certain reserve and dignity and fineness that they resented. And they resented the level way she looked at them, with that disdainful face under cloudy black hair, instead of being shy and drooping as became an interloper on probation.

“You are a proud one,” said Black-eyes. “Oh, my, you may have buttoned boots, but you are living on charity.”

On writing

In the recess of the dormer window she crouched—breathlessly she selected a letter-bill and extracted a lead pencil from her pocket. An old sheet of cardboard served as a desk; she began to write feverishly.

“Dear Father”—and then she poured out her tale of the day—of her rapture and her pain—writing heedlessly and intently until the sunset faded into dim, star-litten twilight. The chickens went unfed—Cousin Jimmy had to go himself for the cows—Saucy Sal got no new milk—Aunt Laura had to wash the dishes—what mattered97 it? Emily, in the delightful throes of literary composition, was lost to all worldly things.

When she had covered the backs of four letter-bills she could see to write no more. But she had emptied out her soul and it was once more free from evil passions. She even felt curiously indifferent to Miss Brownell. Emily folded up her letter-bills and wrote clearly across the packet,

Mr. Douglas Starr,