"Sometimes I think it really isn't worth while to try to write anything when everything is already so well expressed in the Bible. That verse I've just quoted for instance... it makes me feel like a pigmy in the presence of a giant. Only twelve simple words... yet a dozen pages couldn't have better expressed the feeling one has in spring.
"This afternoon Cousin Jimmy and I sowed our aster bed. The seeds came promptly. Evidently the firm has not gone bankrupt yet. But Aunt Elizabeth thinks they are old stock and won't grow.
"Dean is home; he was down to see me last night... dear old Dean. He hasn't changed a bit. His green eyes are as green as ever and his nice mouth as nice as ever and his interesting face as interesting as ever. He took both my hands and looked earnestly at me.
"'You have changed, Star,' he said. 'You look more like spring than ever. But don't grow any taller,' he went on. 'I don't want to have you looking down on me.'
"I don't want to, either. I'd hate to be taller than Dean. It wouldn't seem right at all.
"Teddy is an inch taller than I am. Dean says he has improved greatly in his drawing this past year. Mrs. Kent still hates me. I met her to-night, when I was out for a walk with myself in the spring twilight, and she would not even stop to speak to me... just slipped by me like a shadow in the twilight. She looked at me for a second as she passed me, and her eyes were pools of hatred. I think she grows more unhappy every year.
"In my walk I went and said good evening to the Disappointed House. I am always so sorry for it... it is a house that has never lived... that has not fulfilled its destiny. Its blind windows seem peering wistfully from its face as if seeking vainly for what they cannot find. No homelight has ever gleamed through them in summer dusk or winter darkness. And yet I feel, somehow, that the little house has kept its dream and that sometime it will come true.
"I wish I owned it.
"I dandered around all my old haunts to-night... Lofty John's bush... Emily's Bower... the old orchard... the pond graveyard... the To-day Road... I love that little road. It's like a personal friend to me.
"I think 'dandering' is a lovely word of its kind... not in itself exactly, like some words, but because it is so perfectly expressive of its own meaning. Even if you'd never heard it before you'd know exactly what it meant... DANDERING could mean ONLY dandering.
"The discovery of beautiful and interesting words always gives me joy. When I find a new, charming word I exult as a jewel-seeker and am unhappy until I've set it in a sentence.
"May 29, 19...
"To-night Aunt Ruth came home with a portentous face.
"'Em'ly, what does this story mean that is all over Shrewsbury... that you were seen standing on Queen-street last night WITH A MAN'S ARMS AROUND YOU, KISSING HIM?'
"I knew in a minute what had happened. I wanted to stamp... I wanted to laugh... I wanted to tear my hair. The whole thing was so absurd and ludicrous. But I had to keep a grave face and explain to Aunt Ruth.
"This is the dark, unholy tale.
"Ilse and I were 'dandering' along Queen-street last night at dusk. Just by the old Taylor house we met a man. I do not know the man... not likely I shall ever know him. I do not know if he was tall or short, old or young, handsome or ugly, black or white, Jew or Gentile, bond or free. But I DO know he hadn't shaved that day!
"He was walking at a brisk pace. Then something happened which passed in the wink of an eye, but takes several seconds to describe. I stepped aside to let him pass... he stepped in the same direction... I darted the other way... so did he... then I thought I saw a chance of getting past and I made a wild dash... he made a dash... with the result that I ran full tilt against him. He had thrown out his arms when he realized a collision was unavoidable... I went right between them... and in the shock of the encounter they involuntarily closed around me for a moment while my nose came into violent contact with his chin.
"'I... I... beg your pardon,' the poor creature gasped, dropped me as if I were a hot coal, and tore off around the corner.
"Ilse was in fits. She said she had never seen anything so funny in her life. It had all passed so quickly that to a bystander it looked exactly as if that man and I had stopped, gazed at each other for a moment, and then rushed madly into each other's arms.
"My nose ached for blocks. Ilse said she saw Miss Taylor peering from the window just as it happened. Of course that old gossip has spread the story with her own interpretation of it.
"I explained all this to Aunt Ruth, who remained incredulous and seemed to consider it a very limping tale indeed.
"'It's a VERY strange thing that on a sidewalk twelve feet wide you couldn't get past a man without embracing him,' she said.
"'Come now, Aunt Ruth,' I said, 'I know you think me sly and deep and foolish and ungrateful. But you know I am half Murray, and DO you think anyone with ANY Murray in her would embrace a gentleman friend on the public street?'
"'Oh, I DID think you could hardly be so brazen,' admitted Aunt Ruth. 'But Miss Taylor said she SAW it. Every one has heard it. I do NOT like to have one of my family talked about like that. It would not have occurred if you had not been out with Ilse Burnley in defiance of my advice. Don't let anything like this happen again.'
"'Things like that don't happen,' I said. 'They are foreordained.'
"June 3, 19...
"The Land of Uprightness is a thing of beauty. I can go to the Fern Pool to write again. Aunt Ruth is very suspicious of this performance. She has never forgotten that I 'met Perry' there one evening. The pool is very lovely now under its new young ferns. I look into it and imagine it is the legendary pool in which one could see the future. I picture myself tiptoeing to it at midnight by full o' moon... casting something precious into it... then looking timidly at what I saw.
"What would it show me? The Alpine Path gloriously climbed? Or failure?
"No, never failure!
"June 9, 19...
"Last week Aunt Ruth had a birthday and I gave her a centre-piece which I had embroidered. She thanked me rather stiffly and didn't seem to care anything about it.
"To-night I was sitting in the bay window recess of the dining- room, doing my algebra by the last light. The folding-doors were open and Aunt Ruth was talking to Mrs. Ince in the parlour. I thought they knew I was in the bay, but I suppose the curtains hid me. All at once I heard my name. Aunt Ruth was showing the centre-piece to Mrs. Ince... quite proudly.
"'My niece Em'ly gave me this on my birthday. See how beautifully it is done... she is very skilful with her needle.'
"Could this be Aunt Ruth? I was so petrified with amazement that I could neither move nor speak.
"'She is clever with more than her needle,' said Mrs. Ince. 'I hear Principal Hardy expects her to head her class in the terminal examinations.'
"'Her mother... my sister Juliet... was a VERY clever girl,' said Aunt Ruth.
"'And she's quite pretty, too," said Mrs. Ince.
"'Her father, Douglas Starr, was a remarkably handsome man,' said Aunt Ruth.
"They went out then. For once an eavesdropper heard something good of herself!
"But from Aunt Ruth!!
"June 17, 19...
"My 'candle goeth not out by night' now... at least not until quite late. Aunt Ruth lets me sit up because the terminal examinations are on. Perry infuriated Mr. Travers by writing at the end of his algebra paper, Matthew 7:5. When Mr. Travers turned it up he read: 'Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.' Mr. Travers is credited with knowing much less about mathematics than he pretends to. So he was furious and threw Perry's paper out 'as a punishment for impertinence.' The truth is poor Perry made a mistake. He MEANT to write Matthew 5:7. 'Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy.' He went and explained to Mr. Travers but Mr. Travers wouldn't listen. Then Ilse bearded the lion in his den... that is, went to Principal Hardy, told him the tale and induced him to intercede with Mr. Travers. As a result Perry got his marks, but was warned not to juggle with Scripture texts again.