your nature. If I give the b’y an eddication will ye marry him when ye grow up?”
“Me!” said Emily again. It seemed to be all she could say. Was she dreaming? She must be.
“Yis—you. You’re half Murray and it’ll be a great step up f’r the b’y. He’s smart and he’ll be a rich man some day and boss the country. But divil a cent will I spend on him unless you promise.”
“Aunt Elizabeth wouldn’t let me,” cried Emily, too frightened of this odd old body to refuse on her own account.
“If you’ve got any Murray in you you’ll do your own choosing,” said Aunt Tom, thrusting her face so close to Emily’s that her bushy eyebrows tickled Emily’s nose. “Say you’ll marry the b’y and to college he goes.”
Emily seemed to be rendered speechless. She could think of nothing to say—oh, if she could only wake up! She could not even run.
“Say it!” insisted Aunt Tom, thumping her stick sharply on a stone in the path.
Emily was so horrified that she might have said something—anything—to escape. But at this moment Perry bounded out of the spruce copse, his face white with rage, and seized his Aunt Tom most disrespectfully by the shoulder.
“You go home!” he said furiously.
“Now, b’y dear,” quavered Aunt Tom deprecatingly. “I was only trying to do you a good turn. I was asking her to marry ye after a bit an—”
“I’ll do my own asking!” Perry was angrier than ever. “You’ve likely spoiled everything. Go home—go home, I say!”
Aunt Tom hobbled off muttering, “Then I’ll know better than to waste me bit o’ money. No Murray, no money, me b’y.”
When she had disappeared down the brook path Perry turned to Emily. From white he had gone very red.
