Jennie stared.
“Then you don’t know the reason? Why, Beth Beatty told me the whole story. Muriel Porter hates you and she just up and told Rhoda that she would not go to her party if you were invited. And Rhoda was so crazy to have a town girl there that she promised she wouldn’t invite you.”
“Muriel Porter doesn’t know me,” gasped Emily. “How can she hate me?”
Jennie grinned impishly.
“I can tell you. She’s dead stuck on Fred Stuart and Fred knows it and he teased her by praising you up to her—told her you were the sweetest girl in Blair Water and he meant to have you for his girl when you were a little older. And Muriel was so mad and jealous she made Rhoda leave you out. I wouldn’t care if I was you. A Murray of New Moon is away above such trash. As for Rhoda not being deceitful, I can tell you she is. Why, she told you that she didn’t know that snake was in the box, when it was her thought of doing it in the first place.”
Emily was too crushed to reply. She was glad that Jennie had to switch off down her own lane and leave her alone. She hurried home, afraid that she could not keep the tears back until she got there. Disappointment about the party—humiliation over the insult—all were swallowed up in the anguish of a faith betrayed and a trust outraged. Her love of Rhoda was quite dead now and Emily smarted to the core of her soul with the pain of the blow that had killed it. It was a child’s tragedy—and all the more bitter for that, since there was no one to understand. Aunt Elizabeth told her that birthday parties were all nonsense and that the Stuarts were not a family that the Murrays had ever associated with. And even Aunt Laura, though she petted and comforted, did not realize how deep and grievous the hurt had been—so deep and grievous that Emily could
