Ilse chose to be disgruntled because Emily was going for a visit. In reality Ilse felt appalled at the lonely prospect of a month or more without her inseparable chum. No more jolly evenings of playacting in Lofty John’s bush, no more pungent quarrels. Besides, Ilse herself had never been anywhere for a visit in her whole life and she felt sore over this fact.
“I wouldn’t go to Wyther Grange for anything,” said Ilse. “It’s haunted.”
“ ’Tisn’t.”
“Yes! It’s haunted by a ghost you can feel and hear but never see. Oh, I wouldn’t be you for the world! Your Great-Aunt Nancy is an awful crank and the old woman who lives with her is a witch. She’ll put a spell on you. You’ll pine away and die.”
“I won’t—she isn’t!”
“Is! Why, she makes the stone dogs on the gateposts howl every night if anyone comes near the place. They go, ‘Wo-or-oo-oo.’ ”
Ilse was not a born elocutionist for nothing. Her “wo-or-oo-oo” was extremely gruesome. But it was daylight, and Emily was as brave as a lion in daylight.
“You’re jealous,” she said, and walked off.
“I’m not, you blithering centipede,” Ilse yelled after her. “Putting on airs because your aunt has stone dogs on her gateposts! Why, I know a woman in Shrewsbury who has dogs on her posts that are ten times stonier than your aunt’s!”
But next morning Ilse was over to bid Emily goodbye and entreat her to write every week. Emily was going to drive to Priest Pond with Old Kelly. Aunt Elizabeth was to have driven her but Aunt Elizabeth was not feeling well that day and Aunt Laura could not leave her. Cousin Jimmy had to work at the hay. It looked as if she could not go, and this was rather serious, for Aunt Nancy had been told to expect her that day and Aunt Nancy did not like to be disappointed. If Emily did not turn up at Priest Pond on the day set Great-Aunt Nancy was quite capable of shutting the door in her face when she did appear and telling her to go back home. Nothing less than this conviction would have induced Aunt Elizabeth to fall in with Old Kelly’s suggestion that Emily should ride to Priest Pond with him. His home was on the other side of it and he was going straight there.
Emily was quite delighted. She liked Old Kelly and thought that a drive on his fine red wagon would be quite an adventure. Her little black box was hoisted to the roof and tied there and they went clinking and glittering down the New Moon lane in fine style. The tins in the bowels of the wagon behind them rumbled like a young earthquake.
“Get up, my nag, get up,” said Old Kelly. “Sure, an’ I always like to drive the pretty gurrls. An’ when is the wedding to be?”
“Whose wedding?”
“The slyness av her! Your own, av coorse.”
“I have no intention of being married—immediately,” said Emily, in a very good imitation of Aunt Elizabeth’s tone and manner.
“Sure, and ye’re a chip av the ould block. Miss Elizabeth herself couldn’t have said it better. Get up, my nag, get up.”
“I only meant,” said Emily, fearing that she had insulted Old Kelly, “that I am too young to be married.”
“The younger the better—the less mischief ye’ll be after working with them come-hither eyes. Get up, my nag, get up. The baste is tired. So we’ll let him go at his own swate will. Here’s a bag av swaties for ye. Ould Kelley always trates the ladies. Come now, tell me all about him.”
“About who?”—but Emily knew quite well.
“Your beau, av coorse.”
“I haven’t any beau. Mr. Kelly, I wish you wouldn’t talk to me about such things.”
“Sure, and I won’t if ’tis a sore subject. Don’t ye be minding if ye haven’t got one—there’ll be scads av them after a while. And if the right one doesn’t know what’s good for him, just ye come to Ould Kelly and get some toad ointment.”
Toad ointment! It sounded horrible. Emily shivered. But she would rather talk about toad ointment than beaux.
“What is that for?”
“It’s a love charm,” said Old Kelly mysteriously. “Put a li’l smootch on his eyelids and he’s yourn for life with never a squint at any other gurrl.”
“It doesn’t sound very nice,” said Emily. “How do you make it?”
“You bile four toads alive till they’re good and soft and then mash—”
“Oh, stop, stop!” implored Emily, putting her hands to her ears. “I don’t want to hear any more—you couldn’t be so cruel!”
“Cruel is it? You were after eating lobsters this day that were biled alive—”
“I don’t believe it. I don’t. If it’s true I’ll never, never eat one again. Oh, Mr. Kelly, I thought you were a nice kind man—but those poor toads!”
“Gurrl dear, it was only me joke. An’ you won’t be nading toad ointment to win your lad’s love. Wait you now—I’ve something in the till behind me for a prisent for you.”
Old Kelly fished out a box which he put into Emily’s lap. She found a dainty little hairbrush in it.
“Look at the back av it,” said Old Kelly. “You’ll see something handsome—all the love charm ye’ll ever nade.”
Emily turned it over. Her own face looked back at her from a little inset mirror surrounded by a scroll of painted roses.
“Oh, Mr. Kelly—how pretty—I mean the roses and the glass,” she cried. “Is it really for me? Oh, thank you, thank you! Now, I can have Emily-in-the-glass whenever I want her. Why, I can carry her round with me. And you were really only in fun about the toads!”
“Av coorse. Get up, my nag, get up. An’
