Page:Emily Climbs.pdf/248

“I awoke to find myself infamous.

“I expected Mr. Towers would be furious; but he is only mildly annoyed—and a little amused at the back of it. It isn’t as if Mr. Wickham had been a settled minister here, of course. Nobody cared for him or his sermon and Mr. Towers is a Presbyterian, so the St. John’s people can’t accuse him of wanting to insult them. It is poor Emily B. on whom is laid the whole burden of condemnation. It appears most of them think I did it ‘to show off.’ Aunt Ruth is furious, Aunt Elizabeth outraged, Aunt Laura grieved, Cousin Jimmy alarmed. It is such a shocking thing to criticise a minister’s sermon. It is a Murray tradition that ministers’ sermons—Presbyterian ministers’ especially—are sacrosanct. My presumption and vanity will yet be the ruin of me, so Aunt Elizabeth coldly informs me. The only person who seems pleased is Mr. Carpenter. (Dean is away in New York. I know he would like it, too.) Mr. Carpenter is telling every one that my ‘report’ is the best thing of its kind he ever read. But Mr. Carpenter is suspected of heresy, so his commendation will not go far to rehabilitate me.

“I feel wretched over the affair. My mistakes worry me more than my sins sometimes. And yet, an unholy something, ’way back in me, is grinning over it all. Every word in that ‘report’ was true. And more than true—appropriate. I didn’t mix my metaphors.

“Now, to live this down!

‘‘‘Awake thou north wind and come thou south. Blow upon my garden that the spices thereof may flow out.’

“So chanted I as I went through the Land of Uprightness this evening—only I put ‘woods’ in place of garden. For spring is just around the corner and I have forgotten everything but gladness.

“We had a grey, rainy dawn but sunshine came in the afternoon and a bit of April frost tonight—just enough