bills,’ as they were called. Mother always kept them, though when once used they were of no further use. But I’m going to burn them right away.”
“Oh, Aunt Laura,” gasped Emily, so torn between desire and fear that she could hardly speak. “Oh, don’t do that—give them to me—please give them to me.”
“Why, child, what ever do you want of them?”
“Oh, Aunty, they have such lovely blank backs for writing on. Please, Aunt Laura, it would be a sin to burn those letter-bills.”
“You can have them, dear. Only you’d better not let Elizabeth see them.”
“I won’t—I won’t,” breathed Emily.
She gathered her precious booty into her arms and fairly ran upstairs—and then upstairs again into the garret, where she already had her “favourite haunt,” in which her uncomfortable habit of thinking of things thousands of miles away could not vex Aunt Elizabeth. This was the quiet corner of the dormer window, where shadows always moved about, softly and swingingly, and beautiful mosaics patterned the bare floor. From it one could see over the tree-tops right down to the Blair Water. The walls were hung around with great bundles of soft fluffy rolls, all ready for spinning, and hanks of untwisted yarn. Sometimes Aunt Laura spun on the great wheel at the other end of the garret and Emily loved the whirr of it.
In the recess of the dormer window she crouched—breathlessly she selected a letter-bill and extracted a lead pencil from her pocket. An old sheet of cardboard served as a desk; she began to write feverishly.
“Dear Father”—and then she poured out her tale of the day—of her rapture and her pain—writing heedlessly and intently until the sunset faded into dim, star-litten twilight. The chickens went unfed—Cousin Jimmy had to go himself for the cows—Saucy Sal got no new milk—Aunt Laura had to wash the dishes—what mattered
