more word about them I’ll look you over with the evil eye.”
Nobody understood what this threat meant, but that made it all the more effective. It produced a brief silence. Then the baiting began again in a different form.
“Can you sing?” asked a thin, freckled girl, who yet contrived to be very pretty in spite of thinness and freckles.
“No,” said Emily.
“Can you dance?”
“No.”
“Can you sew?”
“No.”
“Can you cook?”
“No.”
“Can you knit lace?”
“No.”
“Can you crochet?”
“No.”
“Then what can you do?” said the freckled-one in a contemptuous tone.
“I can write poetry,” said Emily, without in the least meaning to say it. But at that instant she knew she could write poetry. And with this queer unreasonable conviction came—the flash! Right there, surrounded by hostility and suspicion, fighting alone for her standing, without backing or advantage, came the wonderful moment when soul seemed to cast aside the bonds of flesh and spring upward to the stars. The rapture and delight on Emily’s face amazed and enraged her foes. They thought it a manifestation of Murray pride in an uncommon accomplishment.
“You lie,” said Black-eyes bluntly.
“A Starr does not lie,” retorted Emily. The flash was gone, but its uplift remained. She looked them all over with a cool detachment that quelled them temporarily.
“Why don’t you like me?” she asked directly.
