I won’t write anything that isn’t true. Will that do? Because it’s all I can promise.”
Elizabeth knitted two rounds before deigning to reply. Cousin Jimmy and Emily thought she was not going to reply at all. Suddenly she folded up her knitting and rose.
“Very well. I will let it go at that. It is, of course, your stories I object to most: as for the rest, I fancy Ruth will see to it that you have not much time to waste on it.”
Aunt Elizabeth swept out, much relieved in her secret heart that she had not been utterly routed, but had been enabled to retreat from a perplexing position with some of the honours of war. Cousin Jimmy patted Emily’s black head.
“That’s good, Emily. Mustn’t be too stubborn, you know. And three years isn’t a lifetime, pussy.”
No: but it seems like one at fourteen. Emily cried herself to sleep when she went to bed—and woke again at three by the clock, of that windy, dark-grey night on the old north shore—rose—lighted a candle—sat down at her table and described the whole scene in her Jimmy-book: being exceedingly careful to write therein no word that was not strictly true!
Teddy and Ilse and Perry whooped for joy when Emily told them she was going to Shrewsbury. Emily, thinking it over, was reasonably happy. The great thing was that she was going to High School. She did not like the idea of boarding with Aunt Ruth. This was unexpected. She had supposed Aunt Ruth would never be willing to have her about and that, if Aunt Elizabeth did decide to send her to Shrewsbury, she would board elsewhere—probably with Ilse. Certainly, she would have greatly preferred this. She knew quite well
