“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 very delightful and satisfying. Ilse had been a splendid chum—there was no doubt about that. After Emily had cooled down she went to the dormer window and cried.
“Wretched, wretched me!” she sobbed, dramatically, but very sincerely.
Yet the bitterness of her break with Rhoda was not present. This quarrel was fair and open and aboveboard. She had not been stabbed in the back. But of course she and Ilse would never be chums again. You couldn’t be chums with a person who called you a chit and a biped, and a serpent, and told you to go to the devil. The thing was impossible. And besides, Ilse could never forgive her—for Emily was honest enough to admit to herself that she had been very aggravating, too.
Yet, when Emily went to the playhouse next morning, bent on retrieving her share of broken dishes and boards, there was Ilse, skipping around, hard at work, with all the shelves back in place, the moss garden remade, and a beautiful parlour laid out and connected with the living-room by a spruce arch.
“Hello, you. Here’s your parlour and I hope you’ll be satisfied now,” she said gaily. “What’s kept you so long? I thought you were never coming.”
This rather posed Emily after her tragic night, wherein she had buried her second friendship and wept over its grave. She was not prepared for so speedy a resurrection. As far as Ilse was concerned it seemed as if no quarrel had ever taken place.
“Why, that was yesterday,” she said in amazement, when Emily, rather distantly, referred to it. Yesterday and today were two entirely different things in Ilse’s philosophy. Emily accepted it—she found she had to. Ilse, it transpired, could no more help flying into tantrums now and then than she could help being jolly and affectionate between them. What amazed Emily, in whom things were bound to rankle for a time, was the way in which Ilse appeared to forget a quarrel the moment it was over. To be called a serpent and a crocodile one minute and hugged and darling-ed the next was somewhat disconcerting until time and experience took the edge off it.
“Aren’t I nice enough between times to make up for it?” demanded Ilse. “Dot Payne never flies into tempers, but would you like her for a chum?”
“No, she’s too stupid,” admitted Emily.
“And Rhoda Stuart is never out of temper, but you got enough of her. Do you think I’d ever treat you as she did?”
No, Emily had no doubt on this point. Whatever Ilse was or was not, she was loyal and true.
And certainly Rhoda Stuart and Dot Payne compared to Ilse were “as moonlight unto sunlight and as water unto wine”—or would have been if Emily had as yet known anything more of her Tennyson than the “Bugle Song”.
“You can’t have everything,” said Ilse. “I’ve got Dad’s temper and that’s all there is to it. Wait till you see him in one of his rages.”
Emily had not seen this so far. She had often been down in the Burnley’s house but on the few occasions when Dr. Burnley had been home he had ignored her save for a curt nod. He was a busy man, for, whatever his shortcomings were, his skill was unquestioned and the bounds of his practice extended far. By the sickbed he was as gentle and sympathetic as he was brusque and sarcastic away from it. As long as you were ill there was nothing Dr. Burnley would not do for you; once you were well he had apparently no further use
