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were as kind and frank as a child’s. He gave Emily a hearty handshake, though he looked askance at the lady across from him while doing it.
    â€œHello, pussy!” he said.
    Emily began to smile at him, but her smile was, as always, so slow in developing that Ellen had whisked her on before it was in full flower, and it was Aunt Laura who got the benefit of it. Aunt Laura started and paled.
    â€œJuliet’s smile!” she said, half under her breath. And again Aunt Ruth sniffed.
    Aunt Laura did not look like anyone else in the room. She was almost pretty, with her delicate features and the heavy coils of pale, sleek, fair hair, faintly grayed, pinned closely all around her head. But it was her eyes that won Emily. They were such round blue, blue eyes. One never quite got over the shock of their blueness. And when she spoke it was in a beautiful, soft voice.
    â€œYou poor, dear, little child,” she said, and put her arm around Emily for a gentle hug.
    Emily returned the hug and had a narrow escape then from letting the Murrays see her cry. All that saved her was the fact that Ellen suddenly pushed her on into the corner by the window.
    â€œAnd this is your Aunt Elizabeth.”
    Yes, this was Aunt Elizabeth. No doubt about that—and she had on a stiff, black satin dress, so stiff and rich that Emily felt sure it must be her very best. This pleased Emily. Whatever Aunt Elizabeth thought of her father, at least she had paid him the respect of her best dress. And Aunt Elizabeth was quite fine looking in a tall, thin, austere style, with clear-cut features and a massive coronet of iron-gray hair under her black lace cap. But her eyes, though steel-blue, were as cold as Aunt Ruth’s, and her long thin mouth was compressed severely. Under her cool, appraising glance Emily retreated into herself and shut the door of her soul. She would have liked to please Aunt Elizabeth—who was “boss” at New Moon—but she felt she could not do it.
    Aunt Elizabeth shook hands and said nothing—the truth being that she did not know exactly what to say. Elizabeth Murray would not have felt “put about” before King or Governor-General. The Murray pride would have carried her through there; but she did feel disturbed in the presence of this alien, level-gazing child who had already shown that she was anything but meek and humble. Though Elizabeth Murray would never have admitted it, she did not want to be snubbed as Wallace and Ruth had been.
    â€œGo and sit on the sofa,” ordered Ellen.
    Emily sat on the sofa with her eyes cast down, a slight, black, indomitable little figure. She folded her hands on her lap and crossed her ankles. They should see she had manners.
    Ellen had retreated to the kitchen, thanking her stars that that was over. Emily did not like Ellen but she felt deserted when Ellen had gone. She was alone now before the bar of Murray opinion. She would have given anything to be out of the room. Yet in the back of her mind a design was forming of writing all about it in the old account book. It would be interesting. She could describe them all—she knew she could. She had the very word for Aunt Ruth’s eyes—“stone-gray.” They were just like stones—as hard and cold and relentless. Then a pang tore through her heart. Father could never again read what she wrote in the account book.
    Still—she felt that she would rather like to write it all out. How could she best describe Aunt Laura’s eyes? They were such beautiful eyes—just to call them “blue” meant nothing—hundreds of people had blue eyes—oh, she had it—“wells of blue”—that was the very thing.
    And then the flash came!
    It was the first time since the dreadful night when Ellen had met her on the doorstep. She had thought it could never come again—and now in this most unlikely place and time it had come—she had seen, with other eyes