"Lately, being forbidden to write stories, I've been THINKING them out. But one day it struck me that I was breaking my compact with Aunt Elizabeth in spirit if not in letter. So I have stopped it.
"I wrote a character study of Ilse to-day. Very fascinating. It is difficult to analyse her. She is so different and unexpectable. (I coined that word myself.) She doesn't even get mad like anybody else. I enjoy her tantrums. She doesn't say so many awful things in them as she used to but she is PIQUANT. (Piquant is a new word for me. I like using a new word. I never think I really own a word until I've spoken or written it.)
"I am writing by my window. I love to watch the Shrewsbury lights twinkle out in the dusk over that long hill.
"I had a letter from Dean to-day. He is in Egypt... among ruined shrines of old gods and the tombs of old kings. I saw that strange land through his eyes... I seemed to go back with him through the old centuries... I knew the magic of its skies. I was Emily of Karnak or Thebes... not Emily of Shrewsbury at all. That is a trick Dean has.
"Aunt Ruth insisted on seeing his letter and when she read it she said it was impious!
"I should never have thought of that adjective.
"October 21, 19...
"I climbed the steep little wooded hill in the Land of Uprightness to-night and had an exultation on its crest. There's always something satisfying in climbing to the top of a hill. There was a fine tang of frost in the air, the view over Shrewsbury Harbour was very wonderful, and the woods all about me were expecting something to happen soon... at least that is the only way I can describe the effect they had on me. I forgot EVERYTHING... Aunt Ruth's stings and Evelyn Blake's patronage and Queen Alexandra's dog collar... everything in life that isn't just right. Lovely thoughts came flying to meet me like birds. They weren't MY thoughts. I couldn't think anything half so exquisite. They CAME from somewhere.
"Coming back, on that dark little path, where the air was full of nice, whispering sounds, I heard a chuckle of laughter in a fir copse just behind me. I was startled... and a little bit alarmed. I knew at once it wasn't human laughter... it was more like the Puckish mirth of fairy folk, with just a faint hint of malice in it. I can no longer believe in wood elves... alas, one loses so much when one becomes incredulous... so this laughter puzzled me... and, yes, a horrid, crawly feeling began in my spine. Then, suddenly, I thought of owls and knew it for what it was... a truly delightful sound, as if some survival of the Golden Age were chuckling to himself there in the dark. There were two of them, I think, and they were certainly having a good time over some owlish joke. I must write a poem about it... though I'll never be able to put into words half the charm and devilry of it.
"Ilse was up on the carpet in the principal's room yesterday for walking home from school with Guy Lindsay. Something Mr. Hardy said made her so furious that she snatched up a vase of chrysanthemums that was on his desk and hurled it against the wall, where of course it was smashed to pieces.
"'If I hadn't thrown it at the wall I'd have had to have thrown it at YOU,' she told him.
"It would have gone hard with some girls but Mr. Hardy is a friend of Dr. Burnley's. Besides, there is something about those yellow eyes of Ilse's that do things to you. I know exactly how she would look at Mr. Hardy after she had smashed the vase. All her rage would be gone and her eyes would be laughing and daring... impudent, Aunt Ruth would call it. Mr. Hardy merely told her she was acting like a baby and would have to pay for the vase, since it was school property. That rather squelched Ilse; she thought it a tame ending to her heroics.
"I scolded her roundly. Really, somebody HAS to bring Ilse up and nobody but me seems to feel any responsibility in the matter. Dr. Burnley will just roar with laughter when she tells him. But I might as well have scolded the Wind Woman. Ilse just laughed and hugged me.
"'Honey, it made such a jolly smash. When I heard it I wasn't a bit mad any more.'
"Ilse recited at our school concert last week and everybody thought her wonderful.
"Aunt Ruth told me to-day that she expected me to be a star pupil. She wasn't punning on my name... oh, no, Aunt Ruth hasn't a nodding acquaintance with puns. All the pupils who make ninety per cent average at the Christmas exams and do not fall below eighty in any subject are called 'Star' pupils and are given a gold star-pin to wear for the rest of the term. It is a coveted distinction and of course not many win it. If I fail Aunt Ruth will rub it in to the bone. I must NOT fail.
"October 30, 19...
"The November Quill came out to-day. I sent my owl poem in to the editor a week ago but he didn't use is. And he DID use one of Evelyn Blake's... a silly, simpering little rhyme about Autumn Leaves... very much the sort of thing I wrote three years ago.
"And Evelyn CONDOLED with me before the whole roomful of girls because MY poem hadn't been taken. I suppose Tom Blake had told her about it.
"'You mustn't feel badly about it, Miss Starr. Tom said it wasn't half bad but of course not up to The Quill's standard. Likely in another year or two you'll be able to get in. Keep on trying.'
"'Thanks,' I said. 'I'm not feeling badly. Why should I? I didn't make "beam" rhyme with "green" in my poem. If I had I'd be feeling very badly indeed.'
"Evelyn coloured to her eyes.
"'Don't show your disappointment so plainly, CHILD,' she said.
"But I noticed she dropped the subject after that.
"For my own satisfaction I wrote a criticism of Evelyn's poem in my Jimmy-book as soon as I came from school. I modelled it on Macaulay's essay on poor Robert Montgomery, and I got so much fun out of it that I didn't feel sore and humiliated any more. I must show it to Mr. Carpenter when I go home. He'll chuckle over it.
"November 6, 19...
"I noticed this evening in glancing over my journal that I soon gave up recording my good and bad deeds. I suppose it was because so many of my doings were half-and-half. I never could decide in what class they belonged.
"We are expected to answer roll-call with a quotation on Monday mornings. This morning I repeated a verse from my own poem A Window that Faces the Sea. When I left Assembly to go down to the Prep classroom Miss Aylmer, the Vice-Principal, stopped me.
"'Emily, that was a beautiful verse you gave at roll-call. Where did you get it? And do you know the whole poem?'
"I was so elated I could hardly answer,
"'Yes, Miss Aylmer,' VERY demurely.
"'I would like a copy of it,' said Miss Aylmer. 'Could you write me off one? And who is the author?'
"'The author,' I said laughing, 'is Emily Byrd Starr. The truth is, Miss Aylmer, that I forgot to look up a quotation for roll-call and couldn't think of any in a hurry, so just fell back on a bit of my own.'
"Miss Aylmer didn't say anything for a moment. She just looked at me. She is a stout, middle-aged woman with a square face and nice, wide, grey eyes. "'Do you still want the poem, Miss Aylmer?' I said, smiling.