I went up to the blackboard to work a problem, everybody suddenly began to titter. I could not imagine why. Then I discovered that some one had pinned a sheet of foolscap to my back, on which was printed in big, black letters: ‘Emily Byrd Starr, Authoress of The Four-Legged Duck.’ They laughed more than ever when I snatched it off and threw it in the coal-scuttle. It infuriates me when any one ridicules my ambitions like that. I came home angry and sore. But when I had sat on the steps of the summerhouse and looked at one of Cousin Jimmy’s big purple pansies for five minutes all my anger went away. Nobody can keep on being angry if she looks into the heart of a pansy for a little while.
“Besides, the time will come when they will not laugh at me!
“Andrew went home yesterday. Aunt Elizabeth asked me how I liked him. She never asked me how I liked any one before—my likings were not important enough. I suppose she is beginning to realize that I am no longer a child.
“I said I thought he was good and kind and stupid and uninteresting.
“Aunt Elizabeth was so annoyed she would not speak to me the whole evening. Why? I had to tell the truth. And Andrew is.
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“Old Kelly was here today for the first time this spring, with a load of shining new tins. He brought me a bag of candies as usual—and teased me about getting married, also as usual. But he seemed to have something on his mind, and when I went to the dairy to get him the drink of milk he had asked for, he followed me.
“‘Gurrl dear,’ he said mysteriously. ‘I met Jarback Praste in the lane. Does he be coming here much?”
“I cocked my head at the Murray angle.
“‘If you mean Mr. Dean Priest,’ I said, “he comes often. He is a particular friend of mine.’
