“And was it never found?” asked Emily breathlessly.
“Never—and for no lack of searching. Edward Murray wanted to have the house pulled down—but Uncle Archibald wouldn’t hear of it—because he had built it for his bride. The two brothers quarrelled over it and were never good friends again. Everybody in the connection has taken a spell hunting for the diamond. Most folks think it fell out of the summer house among the flowers or shrubs. But I know better, Emily. I know Miriam Murray’s diamond is somewhere about that old house yet. On moonlit nights, Emily, I’ve seen it glinting—glinting and beckoning. But never in the same place—and when you go to it—it’s gone, and you see it laughing at you from somewhere else.”
Again there was that eerie, indefinable something in Cousin Jimmy’s voice or look that gave Emily a sudden crinkly feeling in her spine. But she loved the way he talked to her, as if she were grown-up; and she loved the beautiful land around her; and, in spite of the ache for her father and the house in the hollow which persisted all the time and hurt her so much at night that her pillow was wet with secret tears, she was beginning to be a little glad again in sunset and bird song and early white stars, in moonlit nights and singing winds. She knew life was going to be wonderful here—wonderful and interesting, what with out-door cook-houses and cream-girdled dairies and pond paths and sun-dials, and Lost Diamonds, and Disappointed Houses and men who didn’t believe in any God—not even Ellen Greene’s God. Emily hoped she would soon see Dr. Burnley. She was very curious to see what an infidel looked like. And she had already quite made up her mind that she would find the Lost Diamond.
CHAPTER VIII
Trial by Fire
AUNT ELIZABETH drove Emily to school the next morning. Aunt Laura had thought that, since there was only a month before vacation, it was not worth while for Emily to “start school.” But Aunt Elizabeth did not yet feel comfortable with a small niece skipping around New Moon, poking into everything insatiably, and was resolved that Emily must go to school to get her out of the way. Emily herself, always avid for new experiences, was quite keen to go, but for all that she was seething with rebellion as they drove along. Aunt Elizabeth had produced a terrible gingham apron and an equally terrible gingham sunbonnet from somewhere in the New Moon garret, and made Emily put them on. The apron was a long sack-like garment, high in the neck, with sleeves. Those sleeves were the crowning indignity. Emily had never seen any little girl wearing an apron with sleeves. She rebelled to the point of tears over wearing it, but Aunt Elizabeth was not going to have any nonsense. Emily saw the Murray look then; and when she saw it she buttoned her rebellious feelings tightly up in her soul and let Aunt Elizabeth put the apron on her.
“It was one of your mother’s aprons when she was a little girl, Emily,” said Aunt Laura comfortingly, and rather sentimentally.
“Then,” said Emily, uncomforted and unsentimental, “I don’t wonder she ran away with Father when she grew up.”
Aunt Elizabeth finished buttoning the apron and gave Emily a none too gentle push away from her.
“Put on your sunbonnet,” she ordered.