This was hard. Emily had looked forward to that visit to Uncle Oliver’s. But on the whole she was relieved. The worst was over and her feet were getting warm. But there was one thing yet. She might as well unburden her heart completely while she was at it.
“There’s another thing I feel I ought to tell you.”
Aunt Elizabeth got into bed again with a grunt. Emily took it for permission.
“Aunt Elizabeth, you remember that book I found in Dr. Burnley’s bookcase and brought home and asked you if I could read it? It was called ’The History of Henry Esmond.’ You looked at it and said you had no objections to my reading history. So I read it. But, Aunt Elizabeth, it wasn’t history—it was a novel. And I knew it when I brought it home.”
“You know that I have forbidden you to read novels, Emily Starr. They are wicked books and have ruined many souls.”
“It was very dull,” pleaded Emily, as if dullness and wickedness were quite incompatible. “And it made me feel unhappy. Everybody seemed to be in love with the wrong person. I have made up my mind, Aunt Elizabeth, that I will never fall in love. It makes too much trouble.”
“Don’t talk of things you can’t understand, and that are not fit for children to think about. This is the result of reading novels. I shall tell Dr. Burnley to lock his bookcase up.”
“Oh, don’t do that, Aunt Elizabeth,” exclaimed Emily. “There are no more novels in it. But I’m reading such an interesting book over there. It tells about everything that’s inside of you. I’ve got as far along as the liver and its diseases. The pictures are so interesting. Please let me finish it.”
This was worse than novels. Aunt Elizabeth was truly horrified. Things that were inside of you were not to be read about.
“Have you no shame, Emily Starr? If you have not I am ashamed for you. Little girls do not read books like that.”
“But, Aunt Elizabeth, why not? I have a liver, haven’t I—and heart and lungs—and stomach—and—”
“That will do, Emily. Not another word.”
Emily went to sleep unhappily. She wished she had never said a word about ’Esmond.’ And she knew she would never have a chance to finish that other fascinating book. Nor had she. Dr. Burnley’s bookcase was locked thereafter and the doctor gruffly ordered her and Ilse to keep out of his office. He was in a very bad humour about it for he had words with Elizabeth Murray over the matter.
Emily was not allowed to forget her bang. She was twitted and teased in school about it and Aunt Elizabeth looked at it whenever she looked at Emily and the contempt in her eyes burned Emily like a flame. Nevertheless, as the mistreated hair grew out and began to curl in soft little ringlets, Emily found consolation. The bang was tacitly permitted, and she felt that her looks were greatly improved thereby. Of course, as soon as it grew long enough she knew Aunt Elizabeth would make her brush it back. But for the time being she took comfort in her added beauty.
The bang was just about at its best when the letter came from Great-Aunt Nancy.
It was written to Aunt Laura—Great-Aunt Nancy and Aunt Elizabeth were not overfond of each other—and in it Great-Aunt Nancy said, “If you have a photograph of that child Emily send it along. I don’t want to see her; she’s stupid—I know she’s stupid. But I want to see what Juliet’s child looks like. Also the child of that fascinating young man, Douglas Starr. He was fascinating. What fools you all were to make such a fuss about Juliet running away with him. If you and Elizabeth had both run away with somebody in your running days it would have been better for you.”
This letter was not shown to Emily. Aunt Elizabeth and Aunt Laura had a long secret consultation and then Emily was told that she was to be taken to Shrewsbury to have her picture taken for Aunt Nancy. Emily was much excited over this. She was dressed in her blue cashmere and Aunt Laura put a point lace collar on it and hung her Venetian beads over it. And new buttoned boots were got for the occasion.
“I’m so glad this has happened while I still have my bang,” thought Emily happily.
But in the photographer’s dressing-room, Aunt Elizabeth grimly proceeded to brush back her bang and pin it with hairpins.
“Oh, please, Aunt Elizabeth, let me have it down,” Emily begged. “Just for the picture. After this I’ll brush it back.”
Aunt Elizabeth was inexorable. The bang was brushed back and the photograph taken. When Aunt Elizabeth saw the finished result she was satisfied.
“She looks sulky; but she is neat; and there is a resemblance to the Murrays I never noticed before,” she told Aunt Laura. “That will please Aunt Nancy. She is very clannish under all her oddness.”
Emily would have liked to throw every one of the photographs in the fire. She hated them. They made her look hideous. Her face seemed to be all forehead. If they sent Aunt Nancy that Aunt Nancy would think her stupider than ever. When Aunt Elizabeth did the photograph up in cardboard and told Emily to take it to the office Emily already knew what she meant to do. She went straight to the garret and took out of her box the watercolour Teddy had made of her. It was just the same size as the photograph. Emily removed the latter from its wrappings, spurning it aside with her foot.
“That isn’t me,” she said. “I looked sulky because I felt sulky about the bang. But I hardly ever look
