main. She was so white and tense that the other pupils thought she must have been found out by Mr. Carpenter in some especially dreadful behaviour and knew she was going to “catch it.” Rhoda Stuart flung her a significantly malicious smile from the porch—which Emily never even saw. She was, indeed, at a momentous bar, with Mr. Carpenter as supreme judge, and her whole future career—so she believed—hanging on his verdict.
The pupils disappeared and a mellow sunshiny stillness settled over the old schoolroom. Mr. Carpenter took the little packet she had given him in the morning out of his desk, came down the aisle and sat in the seat before her, facing her. Very deliberately he settled his glasses astride his hooked nose, took out her manuscripts and began to read—or rather to glance over them, flinging scraps of comments, mingled with grunts, sniffs and hoots, at her as he glanced. Emily folded her cold hands on her desk and braced her feet against the legs of it to keep her knees from trembling. This was a very terrible experience. She wished she had never given her verses to Mr. Carpenter. They were no good—of course they were no good. Remember the editor of the Enterprise.
“Humph!” said Mr. Carpenter. “Sunset—Lord, how many poems have been written on ‘Sunset’—
‘The clouds are massed in splendid state
At heaven’s unbarred western gate
Where troops of star-eyed spirits wait’—
By gad, what does that mean?”
“I—I—don’t know,” faltered startled Emily, whose wits had been scattered by the sudden swoop of his spiked glance.
Mr. Carpenter snorted.
“For heaven’s sake, girl, don’t write what you can’t understand yourself. And this—To Life—‘Life, as thy gift I ask no rainbow joy’—is that sincere? Is it, girl. Stop and think. Do you ask ‘no rainbow joy’ of life?”
