and Elizabeth don’t keep a tight enough rein over her.”
“I’ve done my best,” said Elizabeth stiffly. She herself did think she had been much too lenient with Emily—Laura and Jimmy were two to one—but it nettled her to have Ruth say so.
Uncle Wallace also had an attack of worrying over Emily that winter.
He looked at her one day when he was at New Moon and remarked that she was getting to be a big girl.
“How old are you, Emily?” He asked her that every time he came to New Moon.
“Thirteen in May.”
“H’m. What are you going to do with her, Elizabeth?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Aunt Elizabeth coldly—or as coldly as is possible to speak when one is pouring melted tallow into candle-moulds.
“Why, she’ll soon be grown up. She can’t expect you to provide for her indefinitely”—
“I don’t,” Emily whispered resentfully under her breath.
“—and it’s time we decided what is best to be done for her.”
“The Murray women have never had to work out for a living,” said Aunt Elizabeth, as if that disposed of the matter.
“Emily is only half Murray,” said Wallace. “Besides, times are changing. You and Laura will not live forever, Elizabeth, and when you are gone New Moon goes to Oliver’s Andrew. In my opinion Emily should be fitted to support herself if necessary.”
Emily did not like Uncle Wallace but she was very grateful to him at that moment. Whatever his motives were he was proposing the very thing she secretly yearned for.
“I would suggest,” said Uncle Wallace, “that she be
