year. But don’t worry, Cousin darling, I won’t do any more foolish things for quite a long time now. This has cleared the air. Aunt Elizabeth will think it was dreadful of you to eat a whole crockful of doughnuts yourself, you greedy Cousin Jimmy.”
“Do you want another blank-book?”’
“Not yet. The last one you gave me is only half-full yet. A blank-book lasts me quite a while when I can’t write stories. Oh, I wish I could, Cousin Jimmy.”
“The time will come—the time will come,” said Cousin Jimmy encouragingly. “Wait a while—just wait a while. If we don’t chase things—sometimes the things following us can catch up. ‘Through wisdom is an house builded, and by understanding is it established. And by knowledge shall the chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant riches’—all precious and pleasant riches, Emily. Proverbs twenty-fourth, third and fifth.”
He let Emily out and bolted the door. He put out all the candles but one. He glared at it for a few moments, then, satisfied that Elizabeth could not hear him, Cousin Jimmy said fervently,
“Ruth Dutton can go to—to—to—” Cousin Jimmy’s courage failed him. ‘“—to heaven!”
Emily went back to Shrewsbury through the clear moonlight. She had expected the walk to be dreary and weary, robbed of the impetus anger and rebellion had given. But she found that it had become transmuted into a thing of beauty—and Emily was one of “the eternal slaves of beauty,” of whom Carman sings, who are yet “masters of the world.” She was tired, but her tiredness showed itself in a certain exaltation of feeling and imagination such as she often experienced when over-fatigued. Thought was quick and active. She had a series of brilliant imaginary conversations and thought out so many epigrams that she was agreeably surprised at herself. It was good to feel vivid and interesting and all-alive once more. She was alone but not lonely.
As she walked along she dramatised the night. There
