"I wonder what the dream meant... if it meant anything. I must not think it did. It is a Murray tradition not to be superstitious.
"June 28, 19...
"This is my last night in Shrewsbury. 'Good-bye, proud world, I'm going home'... to-morrow, when Cousin Jimmy is coming for me and my trunk in the old express waggon and I will ride back in that chariot of state to New Moon.
"These three Shrewsbury years seemed so long to me when I looked ahead to them. And now, looking back, they seem as yesterday when it has passed. I think I've won something in them. I don't use so many italics... I've acquired a little poise and self-control... I've got a bit of bitter worldly wisdom... and I've learned to smile over a rejection slip. I think that has been the hardest lesson of all to learn... and doubtless the most necessary.
"As I look back over these three years some things stand out so much more clearly and significantly than others, as if they had a special meaning all their own. And not always the things one might expect either. For instance, Evelyn's enmity and even that horrible moustache incident seem faded and unimportant. But the moment I saw my first poem in Garden and Woodland... oh, that WAS a moment... my walk to New Moon and back the night of the play... the writing of that queer little poem of mine that Mr. Carpenter tore up... my night on the haystack under the September moon... that splendid old woman who spanked the King... the moment in class when I discovered Keats' lines about the 'airy voices'... and that other moment in the old John house when Teddy looked into my eyes... oh, it seems to me these are the things I will remember in the halls of Eternity when Evelyn Blake's sneers and the old John house scandal and Aunt Ruth's nagging and the routine of lessons and examinations have been for ever forgotten. And my promise to Aunt Elizabeth HAS helped me, as Mr. Carpenter predicted. Not in my diary perhaps... I just let myself GO here... one must have a 'vent'... but in my stories and Jimmy-books.
"We had our class day exercises this afternoon. I wore my new cream organdy with the violets in it and carried a big bouquet of pink peonies. Dean, who is in Montreal on his way home, wired the florist here for a bouquet of roses for me... seventeen roses... one for each year of my life... and it was presented to me when I went up for my diploma. That was dear of Dean.
"Perry was class orator and made a fine speech. And he got the medal for general proficiency. It has been a stiff pull between him and Will Morris, but Perry has won out.
"I wrote and read the class day prophecy. It was very amusing and the audience seemed to enjoy it. I had another one in my Jimmy- book at home. It was much MORE amusing but it wouldn't have done to read it.
"I wrote my last society letter for Mr. Towers tonight. I've always hated that stunt but I wanted the few pennies it brought in and one mustn't scorn the base degrees by which one ascends young ambition's ladder.
"I've also been packing up. Aunt Ruth came up occasionally and looked at me as I packed but was oddly silent. Finally she said, with a sigh,
"'I shall miss you awfully, Emily.'
"I never dreamed of her saying and feeling anything like that. And it made me feel uncomfortable. Since Aunt Ruth was so decent about the John house scandal I've felt differently towards her. But I couldn't say I'd miss her.
"Yet something had to be said.
"'I shall always be very grateful to you, Aunt Ruth, for what you have done for me these past three years.'
"'I've tried to do my duty,' said Aunt Ruth virtuously.
"I find I'm oddly sorry to leave this little room I've never liked and that has never liked me, and that long hill starred with lights... after all, I've had some wonderful moments here. And even poor dying Byron! But by no stretch of sentiment can I regret parting from Queen Alexandra's chromo, or the vase of paper flowers. Of course, the Lady Giovanna goes with me. She BELONGS in my room at New Moon. She has always seemed like an exile here. It hurts me to think I shall never again hear the night wind in the Land of Uprightness. But I'll have my night wind in Lofty John's bush; I think Aunt Elizabeth means to let me have a kerosene lamp to write by... my door at New Moon shuts TIGHT... and I will not have to drink cambric tea. I went at dusk to-night to that little pearly pool which has always been such a witching spot to linger near on spring evenings. Through the trees that fringed it faint hues of rose and saffron from the west stole across it. It was unruffled by a breath and every leaf and branch and fern and blade of grass was mirrored in it. I looked in... and saw my face; and by an odd twist of reflection from a bending bough I seemed to wear a leafy garland on my head... like a laurel crown.
"I took it as a good omen.
"Perhaps Teddy was only shy!"
THE END