THERE had been several clashes between Aunt Elizabeth and Emily that winter and spring. Generally Aunt Elizabeth came out victorious¹; there was that in her that would not be denied the satisfaction of having her own way even in trifling² matters. But once in a while she came up against that curious streak³ of granite⁴ in Emily’s composition which was unyielding and unbendable and unbreakable. Mary Murray, of a hundred years agone, had been, so family chronicle ran, a gentle and submissive creature generally; but she had that same streak in her, as her “Here I Stay” abundantly testified. When Aunt Elizabeth tried conclusions with that element in Emily she always got the worst of it. Yet she did not learn wisdom therefrom but pursued her policy of repression⁵ all the more rigorously; for it occasionally came home to her, as Laura let down tucks, that Emily was on the verge⁶ of beginning to grow up and that various breakers and reefs loomed⁷ ahead, ominously⁸ magnified in the mist of unseen years. Emily must not be allowed to get out of hand now, lest later on she make shipwreck⁹ as her mother had done—or as Elizabeth Murray firmly believed she had done. There were, in short, to be no more elopements from New Moon.
One of the things they fell out about was the fact that Emily, as Aunt Elizabeth discovered one day, was in the habit of using more of her egg money to buy paper than Aunt Elizabeth approved of. What did Emily do with so much paper? They had a fuss over this and eventually Aunt Elizabeth discovered that Emily was writing stories. Emily had been writing stories
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 all winter under Aunt Elizabeth’s very nose and Aunt Elizabeth had never suspected it. She had fondly supposed that Emily was writing school compositions. Aunt Elizabeth knew in a vague way that Emily wrote silly rhymes which she called “poetry” but this did not worry her especially. Jimmy made up a lot of similar trash. It was foolish but harmless and Emily would doubtless

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