Free Emily of New Moon by L. M. Montgomery

amazed that there could be any question about it.
    It took all her resolution not to cry when she bade farewell to Mike, who was curled up on the sun-warm grass at the back door.
    â€œMaybe I’ll see you again sometime,” she whispered as she hugged him. “I’m sure good pussy cats go to heaven.”
    Then they were off in the double-seated buggy with its fringed canopy, always affected by the Murrays of New Moon. Emily had never driven in anything so splendid before. She had never had many drives. Once or twice her father had borrowed Mr. Hubbard’s old buckboard and gray pony and driven to Charlottetown. The buckboard was rattly and the pony slow, but Father had talked to her all the way and made the road a wonder.
    Cousin Jimmy and Aunt Elizabeth sat in front, the latter very imposing in black lace bonnet and mantle. Aunt Laura and Emily occupied the seat behind, with Saucy Sal between them in a basket, shrieking piteously.
    Emily glanced back as they drove up the grassy lane, and thought the little, old, brown house in the hollow had a broken-hearted look. She longed to run back and comfort it. In spite of her resolution, the tears came into her eyes; but Aunt Laura put a kid-gloved hand across Sal’s basket and caught Emily’s in a close, understanding squeeze.
    â€œOh, I just love you, Aunt Laura,” whispered Emily.
    And Aunt Laura’s eyes were very, very blue and deep and kind.

CHAPTER 6
    New Moon
    Emily found the drive through the blossomy June world pleasant. Nobody talked much; even Saucy Sal had subsided into the silence of despair; now and then Cousin Jimmy made a remark, more to himself, as it seemed, than to anybody else. Sometimes Aunt Elizabeth answered it, sometimes not. She always spoke crisply and used no unnecessary words.
    They stopped in Charlottetown and had dinner. Emily, who had had no appetite since her father’s death, could not eat the roast beef which the boarding-house waitress put before her. Whereupon Aunt Elizabeth whispered mysteriously to the waitress, who went away and presently returned with a plateful of delicate, cold chicken—fine white slices, beautifully trimmed with lettuce frills.
    â€œCan you eat that ?” said Aunt Elizabeth sternly, as to a culprit at the bar.
    â€œI’ll—try,” whispered Emily.
    She was too frightened just then to say more, but by the time she had forced down some of the chicken she had made up her small mind that a certain matter must be put right.
    â€œAunt Elizabeth,” she said.
    â€œHey, what?” said Aunt Elizabeth, directing her steel-blue eyes straight at her niece’s troubled ones.
    â€œI would like you to understand,” said Emily, speaking very primly and precisely so that she would be sure to get things right, “that it was not because I did not like the roast beef I did not eat it. I was not hungry at all; and I just et some of the chicken to oblige you, not because I liked it any better.”
    â€œChildren should eat what is put before them and never turn up their noses at good, wholesome food,” said Aunt Elizabeth severely. So Emily felt that Aunt Elizabeth had not understood after all and she was unhappy about it.
    After dinner Aunt Elizabeth announced to Aunt Laura that they would do some shopping.
    â€œWe must get some things for the child,” she said.
    â€œOh, please don’t call me ‘the child,’” exclaimed Emily. “It makes me feel as if I didn’t belong anywhere. Don’t you like my name, Aunt Elizabeth? Mother thought it so pretty. And I don’t need any ‘things.’ I have two whole sets of underclothes—only one is patched—”
    â€œS-s-sh!” said Cousin Jimmy, gently kicking Emily’s shins under the table.
    Cousin Jimmy only meant that she would better let Aunt Elizabeth buy “things” for her when she was in the humor for it; but Emily thought he was rebuking her