Emily blushed. She knew staring was not etiquette, and she did not think him at all handsome, so she was very thankful that he did not press his question, but asked another.
“Do you know who your knightly rescuer is?”
“I think you must be Jar—Mr. Dean Priest.” Emily flushed again with vexation. She had come so near to making another terrible hole in her manners.
“Yes, Jarback Priest. You needn’t mind the nickname. I’ve heard it often enough. It’s a Priest idea of humour.” He laughed rather unpleasantly. “The reason for it is obvious enough, isn’t it? I never got anything else at school. How came you to slide over that cliff?”
“I wanted this,” said Emily, waving her farewell-summer.
“And you have it! Do you always get what you go after, even with death slipping a thin wedge between? I think you’re born lucky. I see the signs. If that big aster lured you into danger it saved you as well, for it was through stepping over to investigate it that I saw you. Its size and colour caught my eye. Otherwise I should have gone on and you—what would have become of you? Whom do you belong to that you are let risk your life on these dangerous banks? What is your name—if you have a name! I begin to doubt you—I see you have pointed ears. Have I been tricked into meddling with fairies, and will I discover presently that twenty years have passed and that I am an old man long since lost to the living world with nothing but the skeleton of my dog for company?”
“I am Emily Byrd Starr of New Moon,” said Emily, rather coldly. She was beginning to be sensitive about her ears. Father Cassidy had remarked on them—and now Jarback Priest. Was there really something uncanny about them?
And yet there was a flavour about the said Jarback that she liked—liked decidedly. Emily never was long in doubt about any one she met. In a few minutes she always knew whether she liked, disliked, or was indifferent to them. She had a queer feeling that she had known Jarback Priest for years—perhaps because it had seemed so long when she was lying on that crumbling earth waiting for him to return. He was not handsome but she liked that lean, clever face of his with its magnetic green eyes.
“So you’re the young lady visitor at the Grange!” said Dean Priest, in some astonishment. “Then my dear Aunt Nancy should look after you better—my very dear Aunt Nancy.”
“You don’t like Aunt Nancy, I see,” said Emily coolly.