as well try to turn the wind. This Jarback now – they tell me he’s had his eye onye iver since he fished ye up from the Malvern rocks – he’s just biding his time till ye get old enough for coorting. They tell me he’s an infidel, and it’s well known that whin he was being christened he rached up and clawed the spectacles off av the minister. So what wud ye ixpect? I nadn’t be telling ye he’s lame and crooked – ye can see that for yerself. Take foolish Ould Kelly’s advice and cut loose while there’s time. Now, don’t be looking at me like the Murrays, gurrl dear. Shure, and it’s for your own good I do be spaking.’
“I walked off and left him. One
couldn’t
argue with him over such a thing. I
wish
people wouldn’t put such ideas into my mind. They stick there like burrs. I won’t feel as comfortable with Dean for weeks now, though I know perfectly well every word Old Kelly said was nonsense.
“After Old Kelly went away I came up to my room and wrote a full description of him in a Jimmy-book.
“Ilse has got a new hat trimmed with clouds of blue tulle, and red cherries, with big blue tulle bows under the chin. I did not like it and told her so. She was furious and said I was jealous and hasn’t spoken to me for two days. I thought it all over. I knew I was not jealous, but I concluded I had made a mistake. I will never again tell any one a thing like that. It was true but it was not tactful.
“I hope Ilse will have forgiven me by tomorrow. I miss her horribly when she is offended with me. She’s such a dear thing and so jolly, and splendid, when she isn’t vexed.
“Teddy is a little squiffy with me, too, just now. I
think
it is because Geoff North walked home with me from prayer-meeting last Wednesday night. I
hope
that is the reason. I like to feel that I
have that much power
over Teddy.
“I wonder if I ought to have written that down. But it’s
true
.
“If Teddy only knew it, I have been very unhappy and ashamed over that affair. At first, when Geoff singled me out from all the girls, I was quite proud of it. It was the very first time I had had an
escort home
and Geoff is a town boy,
very handsome and polished
and all the older girls in Blair Water are quite foolish about him. So I sailed away from the church door with him, feeling as if I had grown up all at once. But we hadn’t gone far before I was hating him. He was so
condescending
. He seemed to think I was a simple little country girl who must be quite overwhelmed with the
honour
of his company.
“And that was true at first!
That
was what stung me. To think I had been such a little fool!
“He kept saying, ‘Really, you surprise me,’ in an affected, drawling kind of way, whenever I made a remark. And he
bored
me. He couldn’t talk sensibly about anything. Or else he wouldn’t try to with me. I was quite savage by the time we got to New Moon. And then
that insufferable creature
asked me to kiss him!
“I drew myself up – oh, I was Murray clear through at that moment, all right. I
felt
I was looking exactly like Aunt Elizabeth.
“‘I do not kiss young men,’ I said disdainfully.
“Geoff laughed and caught my hand.
“‘Why, you little goose, what do you suppose I came home with you for!’ he said.
“I pulled my hand away from him, and walked into the house. But before I did that, I did something else.
“
I slapped his face!
“Then I came up to my room and cried with shame over being insulted, and having been so undignified in resenting it. Dignity is a tradition of New Moon, and I felt that I had been false to it.
“But I think I ‘surprised’ Geoff North in right good earnest!
“May 24, 19–
“Jennie Strang told me today that Geoff North told her brother that I was ‘a regular spitfire’ and he had had enough of me.
“Aunt Elizabeth has found out that Geoff came home with me, and told me today that I would not be ‘trusted’ to go alone to prayer-meeting again.
“May 25, 19–
“I