Emily had pictured herself a thousand times wearing that dress, sweeping, a queen of beauty, across a ballroom floor.
Downstairs they were waiting for her. Emily said good-bye to Ellen Greene rather indifferently—she had never liked Ellen Greene at any time, and since the night Ellen had told her her father was going to die she had hated and feared her.
Ellen amazed Emily by bursting into tears and hugging her—begging her not to forget her—asking her to write to her—calling her “my blessed child.”
“I am not your blessed child,” said Emily, “but I will write to you. And will you be very good to Mike?”
“I b’lieve you feel worse over leaving that cat than you do over leaving me,” sniffed Ellen.
“Why, of course I do,” said Emily, amazed that there could be any question about it.
It took all her resolution not to cry when she bade farewell to Mike, who was curled up on the sun-warm grass at the back door.
“Maybe I’ll see you again sometime,” she whispered as she hugged him. “I’m sure good pussy cats go to heaven.”
Then they were off in the double-seated buggy with its fringed canopy, always affected by the Murrays of New Moon. Emily had never driven in anything so splendid before. She had never had many drives. Once or twice her father had borrowed Mr. Hubbard’s old buckboard and grey pony and driven to Charlottetown. The buckboard was rattly and the pony slow, but Father had talked to her all the way and made the road a wonder.
Cousin Jimmy and Aunt Elizabeth sat in front, the latter very imposing in black lace bonnet and mantle. Aunt Laura and Emily occupied the seat behind, with Saucy Sal between them in a basket, shrieking piteously.
Emily glanced back as they drove up the grassy lane, and thought the little, old, brown house in the hollow
