I got him down and smuggled him into our barn, and he stayed there until it was dark and the Strong girls had gone home. Emmeline began to rage at Prissy the moment they were outside my door.
Then Stephen came in and we talked things over. He and Prissy had made good use of their time, short as it had been. Prissy had promised to marry him, and all that remained was to get the ceremony performed.
“And that will be no easy matter,” I warned him. “Now that Emmeline’s suspicions are aroused she’ll never let Prissy out of her sight until you’re married to another woman, if it’s years. I know Emmeline Strong. And I know Prissy. If it was any other girl in the world she’d run away, or manage it somehow, but Prissy never will. She’s too much in the habit of obeying Emmeline. You’ll have an obedient wife, Stephen—if you ever get her.”
Stephen looked as if he thought that wouldn’t be any drawback. Gossip said that Althea had been pretty bossy. I don’t know. Maybe it was so.
“Can’t you suggest something, Rosanna?” he implored. “You’ve helped us so far, and I’ll never forget it.”
“The only thing I can think of is for you to have the license ready, and speak to Mr. Leonard, and keep an eye on our ventilator,” I said. “I’ll watch here and signal whenever there’s an opening.”
Well, I watched and Stephen watched, and Mr. Leonard was in the plot, too. Prissy was always a favourite of his, and he would have been more than human, saint as he is, if he’d had any love for Emmeline, after the way she was always trying to brew up strife in the church.
But Emmeline was a match for us all. She never let Prissy out of her sight. Everywhere she went she toted Prissy, too. When a month had gone by, I was almost in despair. Mr. Leonard had to leave for the Assembly in another week and Stephen’s neighbours were beginning to talk about him. They said that a man who spent all his time hanging around the yard with a spyglass, and trusting everything to a hired boy, couldn’t be altogether right in his mind.
I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw Emmeline driving away one day alone. As soon as she was out of sight I whisked over, and Anne Shirley and Diana Barry went with me.
They were visiting me that afternoon. Diana’s mother was my second cousin, and, as we visited back and forth frequently, I’d often seen Diana. But I’d never seen her chum, Anne Shirley, although I’d heard enough about her to drive anyone frantic with curiosity. So when she came home from Redmond College that summer I asked Diana to take pity on me and bring her over some afternoon.