“You needn’t suppose, you little puling, snivelling chit, that you are going to boss me, just because you live at New Moon,” shrieked Ilse, as an ultimatum, stamping her foot.
“I’m not going to boss you—I’m not going to associate with you ever again,” retorted Emily, disdainfully.
“I’m glad to be rid of you—you proud, stuck-up, conceited, top-lofty biped,” cried Ilse. “Never you speak to me again. And don’t you go about Blair Water saying things about me, either.”
This was unbearable to a girl who never “said things” about her friends or once-friends.
“I’m not going to say things about you,” said Emily deliberately. “I am just going to think them.”
This was far more aggravating than speech and Emily knew it. Ilse was driven quite frantic by it. Who knew what unearthly things Emily might be thinking about her any time she took the notion to? Ilse had already discovered what a fertile invention Emily had.
“Do you suppose I care what you think, you insignificant serpent? Why, you haven’t any sense.”
“I’ve got something then that’s far better,” said Emily, with a maddening superior smile. “Something that you can never have, Ilse Burnley.”
Ilse doubled her fists as if she would like to demolish Emily by physical force.
“If I couldn’t write better poetry than you, I’d hang myself,” she derided.
“I’ll lend you a dime to buy a rope,” said Emily.
Ilse glared at her, vanquished.
“You go to the devil!” she said.
Emily got up and went, not to the devil, but back to New Moon. Ilse relieved her feelings by knocking the boards of their china closet down, and kicking their “moss gardens” to pieces, and departed also.
Emily felt exceedingly badly. Here was another friendship destroyed—a friendship, too, that had been
