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    Emily's Quest
    Emily's Quest
    Emily's Quest
    Ebook278 pages4 hours

    Emily's Quest

    By L. M. Montgomery

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    "I love Emily."-Madeleine L'Engle

    Will Emily's Dreams Ever Come True?

    High school is over and Emily Starr is ready to find her destiny...but she's not quite ready to leave the safety of New Moon farm. She knows that she doesn't need New York City or some other exotic locale to help her become a famous writer. But as all of Emily's friends begin moving away to pursue their own aspirations in exciting places, she wonders if she's made the right choice. After suffering through a devastating illness, receiving rejection notices from multiple publishers, and nearly losing Teddy, her childhood sweetheart, Emily realizes that her quest for love, acceptance, and happiness is far from over.

    This new edition lovingly restores the original, unabridged text and includes an all-new, exclusive introduction with special memories from L.M. Montgomery's granddaughter.

    What Readers Are Saying:

    "Emily's Quest is my favorite of the Emily books (probably of all her books), and a wonderful real for any romantic like me."

    "Wonderful. As with all the Montgomery books, the beauty of the world captures you. Emily's Quest is a brilliant end to a most charming series of books."

    "Emily's Quest is truly a wonderful ending to one of the best stories ever written."

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSourcebooks
    Release dateMay 6, 2014
    ISBN9781402289194
    Author

    L. M. Montgomery

    L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery (1874-1942) was a Canadian author who published 20 novels and hundreds of short stories, poems, and essays. She is best known for the Anne of Green Gables series. Montgomery was born in Clifton (now New London) on Prince Edward Island on November 30, 1874. Raised by her maternal grandparents, she grew up in relative isolation and loneliness, developing her creativity with imaginary friends and dreaming of becoming a published writer. Her first book, Anne of Green Gables, was published in 1908 and was an immediate success, establishing Montgomery's career as a writer, which she continued for the remainder of her life.

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    Reviews for Emily's Quest

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    • 5/5
      Reading Emily of New Moon I began to have an idea of why I've never loved and spent time with Emily Byrd Starr as I have with Anne Shirley or Pat Gardiner. I began to suss it out then, but I loved the book and it still seemed strange to me. With Emily Climbs it began to seem clearer – that dark streak running through it, I said, and left it at that. But it is only on finishing Emily's Quest that I fully understand – and that is partly because I know, on closing this book, I will be leaving it closed for possibly another twenty years. Whether I have the moral courage to read it then will be interesting to see – almost like Emily's fortitude in reading her letter from her fourteen-year-old self to herself at twenty-four, except unlike the very young Emily I know the pain within the pages aimed twenty years ahead. There is pain in the other books, deep and seemingly impassible, and I always cry over the other books (Matthew…). I recognize myself in Valancy, heaven knows, and Anne and Pat, and so their pain is very real to me. But it is their pain. The pain that laces through Emily is personal. I have never read L.M. Montgomery's journals or memoirs or letters, so I don't know if my reading is true, but it feels as though a great deal of Emily comes from Lucy Maude. I find it hard to believe, for one thing, that the snippets of reviews Emily reads to her staunchly supportive family aren't true to life. My feeling is that while the specifics of the circumstances of the years spanned in Quest are wholly fictional, wholly Emily's own, the emotions are not in the least fictional. Fictionalized. After decades loving Anne and Pat and Valancy, still I can't help but identify most strongly of all with Emily – and it is the Emily in this book that brings me to tears. Alone, and left alone, and in no small way responsible for that aloneness, but knowing that there was no other action or set of actions that would have ever been tolerable in any given situation. "I have not heard even from Ilse for a long time. She has forgotten me, too." I know that feeling well. That was the feeling – of having been forgotten in general, compounded with actually being told by someone I held dear that he had forgotten about me, that caused me to – as someone wise recently said – be still and lock the gate from the inside. I walked away then and made some decisions and will hold to them. My locks might get a bit rusty. Facing the daily struggle against the inner demon editor who insists that every word written is trash, or worse, that no one will read this nonsense, that … well. She was, obviously, far more successful in ignoring or silencing that voice than I ever have been, or, at times, ever hope to be. It's funny, though, and I apologize for a spoiler, but even Emily's greatest literary triumph to date was painful to me; I haven't finished a book, much less had it rejected by uncounted publishers, but I know that if I did, and gave up as Emily does, there is no Uncle Jimmy figure in my life to pull it out of storage and send it out again. So I wonder, in a way, that I didn't love these books more when I was the age of Emily (book two). An artist of extraordinary talent, when I wanted to be, planned to be an artist; a writer heroine, when I already was scribbling a little here and there; hard work leading to success and happiness. It should all have appealed, then. Now … the pain is too real, and the abruptly happy ending not as easy to swallow. It's a beautiful book, and a beautiful trilogy … but not for the young and hopeful, or the … what? Not-so-young and futile-feeling. Perhaps it's for those who have been through the pain and persevered better than I have. For me? I think Emily is going to go into a box, and the box is going to be set at the back of a shelf, and the dust will collect on it, and – no. I won't even express the hope that one day I'll read them again without the ache. On the shelf they'll stay.
    • 4/5
      Emily's Quest by L.M. Montgomery; (3 1/2*)This is my least favorite of the Emily trilogy by Montgomery but it could easily have been my most favorite of all Montgomery's works!I loved the characters and thought they were well drawn and that the growth was there for most all of them. Loved the 'wind woman' and was sad that 'the flash' came so rarely in this third novel. Loved the basic storyline but was irritated that there was so much of: "see Emily of New Moon" and "see Emily Climbs". There was a lot of repetitiveness from the first two books of the trilogy and so this one did not seem as original as the others.It saddened me that Emily was so lonely for much of the story. While she decided to stay at New Moon and write, her friends Ilse, Perry and Teddy all went off to travel and develope their careers. Emily began to feel increasingly distant from all of them and as a defence for her aloneness she put on her proud 'Murray airs' which alienated her friends even more. She shut herself away in her room writing day and night trying not to think of her friends, where they were and what they were doing. In this closing book of the trilogy we see Emily's growth as a writer and her compulsion to be out of doors, especially late at night. But in these hours is when she is blessed with most of her story ideas. I found the ending of the novel too pat and sadly unsatisfying. But I wish that Emily could have lived on. I saw her living in the 'disappointed house' and writing her years away with just a cat for company. I guess I like dark.
    • 4/5
      A satisfying continuation of the Emily trilogy, focusing on her writing aspirations as an adult.
    • 5/5
      Another one of my childhood books that should go to a deserving child. I think I liked the Emily series of books even more than the Anne series because there is always one incidence of supernatural in them.
    • 4/5
      This cover is hilarious: Emily's quest leads her to the beach, where she is clearly at a loss.
    • 4/5
      The third and final installment of L.M. Montgomery's series of books devoted to the adventures of aspiring writer Emily Byrd Starr - begun in Emily of New Moon, and continued in Emily Climbs - Emily's Quest sometimes reads like a Prince Edward Island soap-opera, with all the romantic twists and turns implicit in such a description. The most mature of the three novels, it follows its eponymous heroine through a number of years at New Moon, as she becomes engaged, then unengaged, realizes her true love, becomes estranged from him (and watches as he prepares to wed another), all while spreading her literary wings, and achieving her first true success as an author...But despite the sense of melodrama that sometimes makes itself felt, this novel still has the power to affect me deeply, involving me emotionally in Emily's turbulent journey through her young adult years. Although many of my fellow readers, particularly in our discussions over at the Kindred Spirits Book Club to which I belong, have expressed a distaste for the character of Dean Priest, citing his manipulative and possessive behavior, and his dishonesty regarding Emily's writing, I actually find him a moving character. His faults are considerable, but something about his lonely life - enriched by knowledge and impoverished by cynicism - always speaks to my heart. Given that this is so, I have always thought that Montgomery demonstrated great insight and wisdom in refraining from emulating that overused trope - so popular in sentimental novels - of the young innocent who redeems the world-weary cynic. That alone would make this book a worthwhile reading experience for me, although I found many other qualities to admire.Montgomery's descriptions of her beloved Prince Edward Island are as lush as ever, with none of the purple prose that sometimes appeared in Emily of New Moon, and her cast of characters, from the Murrays of New Moon to the seemingly remote Ilse and Teddy, are well drawn. I did wish that Emily's three childhood friends appeared more often, but perhaps that too is a sign of a well-crafted narrative. After all, Emily is growing up, and change must come. The fact that the reader shares her wistful sense of things not turning out quite as expected - as in the bittersweet scene in which she reads her letter to herself at twenty-four, written when she was fourteen - is another testament to Montgomery's powers as a writer.All in all, I am glad to report that Emily's Quest (along with the entire Emily Trilogy) has withstood the test of time, appealing as much to my adult self as it did to the adolescent reader of yesteryear.
    • 3/5
      Whew. I'm glad I read these, and glad I'm done. No more of Emily's confused passions; finally she's found her place as a remarkable adult. The thing that bothered me about Dean Priest resolved out appropriately, and we got to know Mrs. Kent better.

      There are some nice observations & lines sprinkled through the melodrama: Most young men are *such* bores. They haven't lived long enough to learn that they are not the wonders to the world they are to their mothers.""
    • 5/5
      Rich conclusion to a wonderful series.
    • 3/5
      Emily has returned to New Moon to live with her aunts as she pursues her goal of becoming an author. Through successes and failures her love of New Moon never fades but her relationships with her childhood friends continue to evolve as they all become adults. At the same time, Emily also strives to determine just who the best partner for her future life might be.There's plenty of charm as always in L.M. Montgomery's writing as she so beautifully paints word pictures of the PEI landscape. She also brilliantly evokes the highs and lows of Emily's life and knowing that Montgomery herself struggled with depression makes her descriptions of Emily's own low moments particularly realistic. At the same time, Montgomery will always give her characters a happy ending and while this novel's ending felt a bit rushed and not quite as satisfying as I could have hoped, it still leaves Emily in the best place.
    • 4/5
      My second favorite book of the Emily series. A bit dark and mature, but very fulfilling in the end.
    • 3/5
       A stronger book than, Emily Climbs, this novel sees Emily on the cusp of adulthood and looking for love. Instead, she finds Dean Priest, ready to build a future with her, but not as a writer. Still Dean is fond of her, and takes excellent care of her, but what of Teddy? Can it be that Teddy really cares for Ilse?I rather liked this book, but the ending was super abrupt. As with the first book, I'd say great for die-hard Anne fans.
    • 3/5
       A stronger book than, Emily Climbs, this novel sees Emily on the cusp of adulthood and looking for love. Instead, she finds Dean Priest, ready to build a future with her, but not as a writer. Still Dean is fond of her, and takes excellent care of her, but what of Teddy? Can it be that Teddy really cares for Ilse?I rather liked this book, but the ending was super abrupt. As with the first book, I'd say great for die-hard Anne fans.
    • 4/5
      What is interesting about this conclusion to Emily's story is how full it is of grief and doubt and mistakes. Ms. Montgomery brings it right in the end, but the heartbreaking emotions and the battle of head over heart is very real and pervasive in the book. I never really like Dean in this series and this last book makes me really despise him - Emily is a much more forgiving person than I am, and it is a tribute to her maturity that she knows forgiving will give her more peace than not forgiving. I love the end - and probably for Teddy all the mistakes made him a man worth loving. Of course, most of what we know about Teddy in this book comes from Ilse, who is sort of suspect as a narrator!
    • 4/5
      Least favourite of the series. Oh, I still liked it enough, but it was a bit too old for me - I was only 10 or so!
    • 4/5
      Lovely to re-discover this old childhood favourite. It's said that the Emily books are somewhat autobiographical, and more closely resemble LM Montgomery's own life than the Anne books. Reading this shortly after excerpts of Montomery's own journals, it's interesting to recognise certain (occasional) chunks of Emily's journal which appear to be taken from Montgomery's own journal almost verbatim.
    • 3/5
      Off all the Emily books, this was my least favorite. I spent most of the novel wondering how on earth she could become engaged to Dean, and why, oh, why, didn't she and Teddy simply tell each other how they felt. Then all this misunderstanding never would have happened. I felt so dreadful when she burned her first book. However, like all L M novel's every thing's always alright at the end.
    • 4/5
      Off all the Emily books, this was my least favorite. I spent most of the novel wondering how on earth she could become engaged to Dean, and why, oh, why, didn't she and Teddy simply tell each other how they felt. Then all this misunderstanding never would have happened. I felt so dreadful when she burned her first book. However, like all L M novel's every thing's always alright at the end.
    • 4/5
      ok, getting tired of romantic love stories. Time to read something by someone other than L.M. Montgomery, though I still do adore her.
    • 5/5
      As the culmination to the Emily series, I like this one the best. It has that bit of drama and a little bit of mystery that made me want to keep reading. When I read it as a teenager, I remember thinking that the Emily books were dark, but having read them more recently now, I'm finding that really this is the only one with slightly dark elements, and even those pale in comparison to Montgomery's other books. All the same, I really did enjoy the progression of the story, the character's struggles with tradition, with ambition and with (perceived) unrequited love. The ending seems almost too clean to wrap things up in a satisfying way, but the ending does satisfy that need for closure and the need for all of the characters to be with those whom they love. I can't help it - sometimes I just need a story with a clean ending, and Emily fulfills that need.
    • 5/5
      This book is amazing and spectacular! Good writing, painfully wonderful with supreme bliss at the very end. The author literally lifts you out of the most miserable depths that it is possible for a reader to feel and throws you up into clouds of bliss! Highly recommended!
    • 5/5
      Wonderful! Delightful! Enchanting! Descriptive, entertaining! Saddest, most romantic book that I have ever read. Recommended to anyone that likes romantic, yet sad books, that are anyways very, very happy. Loved it. Loved it. Loved it.
    • 5/5
      The third and final Emily novel I think this book is brilliant. I love the story and the idea that some people (Emily and Teddy, Ilse and Perry) just belong together. It's beautiful and moving and so romantic. I love Emily's prophetic dreams and visions and I love that Emily, unlike her counterpart Anne, never changes and never stops being herself. It's a delicious read!

    Book preview

    Emily's Quest - L. M. Montgomery

    Copyright © 2011 Heirs of L. M. Montgomery Inc.

    Introduction copyright © 2014 by Kate Macdonald Butler

    Cover and internal design © 2014 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

    Cover designed by The Book Designers

    Cover illustrations by Jacqui Oakley, jacquioakley.com

    L. M. Montgomery is a trademark of Heirs of L. M. Montgomery Inc.

    Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.

    All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

    The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

    Published by Sourcebooks Fire, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.

    P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

    (630) 961-3900

    Fax: (630) 961-2168

    www.sourcebooks.com

    Original copyright © 1927 Frederick A. Stokes Company (USA).

    Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is on file with the publisher.

    Contents

    Front Cover

    Title Page

    Copyright

    Introduction

    Chapter 1

    Chapter 2

    Chapter 3

    Chapter 4

    Chapter 5

    Chapter 6

    Chapter 7

    Chapter 8

    Chapter 9

    Chapter 10

    Chapter 11

    Chapter 12

    Chapter 13

    Chapter 14

    Chapter 15

    Chapter 16

    Chapter 17

    Chapter 18

    Chapter 19

    Chapter 20

    Chapter 21

    Chapter 22

    Chapter 23

    Chapter 24

    Chapter 25

    Chapter 26

    Chapter 27

    About the Author

    Back Cover

    To Stella Campbell Keller, of the tribe of Joseph

    Introduction

    I was delighted to be asked to write an introduction to the new Sourcebooks edition of the Emily Trilogy—Emily of New Moon, Emily Climbs, and Emily’s Quest, written by my grandmother L. M. Montgomery. The Emily books were a departure for L. M. Montgomery after penning the phenomenally successful Anne of Green Gables novel and its sequels. Both series feature sensitive and eloquent heroines, but Emily Byrd Starr is a more serious heroine than Anne Shirley, and her contemplative, introspective nature is a contrast to Anne’s impetuous and more high-spirited personality.

    The Emily books were the personal favorite of my father, Stuart, of all his mother’s novels, and L. M. Montgomery’s favorite creation was Emily Byrd Starr. She has been quoted as saying, People were never right in saying I was Anne, but in some respects, they will be right if they write me down as Emily.

    Both L. M. Montgomery and Emily Byrd Starr were voracious letter writers and journal keepers with driven and creative natures. Both had to overcome isolation and loneliness and the loss of their mothers, and both developed strong and independent voices as their writing matured. In a letter responding to a devoted fan of Emily of New Moon, my grandmother wrote, I’m glad you like Emily, because she is my own favorite. She is purely a creature of my imagination but a good deal of my own inner life in childhood and girlhood went into her.

    L. M. Montgomery wrote Emily of New Moon, Emily Climbs, and most of Emily’s Quest while she was living in Leaskdale, Ontario, where my grandfather, the Reverend Ewan Macdonald, was the Presbyterian Minister from 1911 to 1926. Leaskdale was a prosperous farming community north of Toronto, and I can only imagine how busy my grandmother’s life must have been as the mother of two lively young sons—my father Stuart and his older brother Chester—and as an active minister’s wife living in the Manse. She was a reliable and engaged member of the Leaskdale village life, well known for her hostessing, cooking, embroidery, photography, and gardening skills. During the years in Leaskdale that she wrote the Emily books (and eight other novels), she was also the first Canadian woman to become a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and Letters of England, she was a member of the Canadian Authors’ Association, and the Canadian Women’s Press Club.

    Additionally, it was during these years in Leaskdale that my grandfather suffered from mental health issues, and she was likely preoccupied with putting forward a good face for the parishioners in order to maintain their stable reputation within the community.

    Emily Byrd Starr is a determined, intelligent, and creative soul and I am sure that the imagined kindred spirit of Emily’s friendship was of great comfort to my grandmother in her daily writing and a welcome break from the ongoing stresses of her real life. I recall my father telling me that, as a little boy in Leaskdale, he was not allowed to disturb his mother when she was doing her daily writing. He remembers slipping little notes and flowers cut from their garden under the crack of her study door to get her attention.

    So many of the adults in the Emily books are troubled, narrow-minded, and unkind, although some ultimately do have vulnerable and surprisingly compassionate sides to their personalities. The Emily books are full of longing, mystery, lush descriptions of landscape, humor, heartbreak and sadness and I understand why my grandmother acknowledged that they will be right if they write me down as Emily.

    It is my sincere hope that a new generation of readers will be inspired and moved by these new editions of Emily of New Moon, Emily Climbs, and Emily’s Quest, written by one of the world’s most beloved writers, my grandmother, L. M. Montgomery.

    Kate Macdonald Butler

    Daughter of the late Dr. Stuart Macdonald

    May 2013

    CHAPTER 1

    1

    No more cambric tea had Emily Byrd Starr written in her diary when she had come to New Moon from Shrewsbury, with her high school days behind her and immortality before her.

    Which was a symbol. When Aunt Elizabeth Murray permitted Emily to drink real tea—as a matter of course and not as an occasional concession—she thereby tacitly consented to let Emily grow up. Emily had been considered grown-up by other people for some time, especially by Cousin Andrew Murray and Friend Perry Miller, each of whom had asked her to marry him and been disdainfully refused for his pains. When Aunt Elizabeth found this out she knew it was no use to go on making Emily drink cambric tea. Though, even then, Emily had no real hope that she would ever be permitted to wear silk stockings. A silk petticoat might be tolerated, being a hidden thing, in spite of its seductive rustle, but silk stockings were immoral.

    So Emily, of whom it was whispered somewhat mysteriously by people who knew her to people who didn’t know her, "she writes, was accepted as one of the ladies of New Moon, where nothing had ever changed since her coming there seven years before and where the carved ornament on the sideboard still cast the same queer shadow of an Ethiopian silhouette on exactly the same place on the wall where she had noticed it delightedly on her first evening there. An old house that had lived its life long ago and so was very quiet and wise and a little mysterious. Also a little austere, but very kind. Some of the Blair Water and Shrewsbury people thought it was a dull place and outlook for a young girl and said she had been very foolish to refuse Miss Royal’s offer of a position on a magazine" in New York. Throwing away such a good chance to make something of herself! But Emily, who had very clear-cut ideas of what she was going to make of herself, did not think life would be dull at New Moon or that she had lost her chance of Alpine climbing because she had elected to stay there.

    She belonged by right divine to the Ancient and Noble Order of Story-tellers. Born thousands of years earlier she would have sat in the circle around the fires of the tribe and enchanted her listeners. Born in the foremost files of time she must reach her audience through many artificial mediums.

    But the materials of story weaving are the same in all ages and all places, births, deaths, marriages, scandals—these are the only really interesting things in the world. So she settled down very determinedly and happily to her pursuit of fame and fortune—and of something that was neither. For writing, to Emily Byrd Starr, was not primarily a matter of worldly lucre or laurel crown. It was something she had to do. A thing—an idea—whether of beauty or ugliness, tortured her until it was written out. Humorous and dramatic by instinct, the comedy and tragedy of life enthralled her and demanded expression through her pen. A world of lost but immortal dreams, lying just beyond the drop-curtain of the real, called to her for embodiment and interpretation—called with a voice she could not—dared not—disobey.

    She was filled with youth’s joy in mere existence. Life was forever luring and beckoning her onward. She knew that a hard struggle was before her; she knew that she must constantly offend Blair Water neighbors who would want her to write obituaries for them and who, if she used an unfamiliar word, would say contemptuously that she was talking big; she knew there would be rejection slips galore; she knew there would be days when she would feel despairingly that she could not write and that it was of no use to try; days when the editorial phrase, not necessarily a reflection on its merits would get on her nerves to such an extent that she would feel like imitating Marie Bashkirtseff and hurling the taunting, ticking, remorseless sitting-room clock out of the window; days when everything she had done or tried to do would slump—become mediocre and despicable; days when she would be tempted to bitter disbelief in her fundamental conviction that there was as much truth in the poetry of life as in the prose; days when the echo of that random word of the gods, for which she so avidly listened, would only seem to taunt her with its suggestions of unattainable perfection and loveliness beyond the reach of mortal ear or pen.

    She knew that Aunt Elizabeth tolerated but never approved her mania for scribbling. In her last two years in Shrewsbury High School Emily, to Aunt Elizabeth’s almost incredulous amazement, had actually earned some money by her verses and stories. Hence the toleration. But no Murray had ever done such a thing before. And there was always that sense, which Dame Elizabeth Murray did not like, of being shut out of something. Aunt Elizabeth really resented the fact that Emily had another world, apart from the world of New Moon and Blair Water, a kingdom starry and illimitable, into which she could enter at will and into which not even the most determined and suspicious of aunts could follow her. I really think that if Emily’s eyes had not so often seemed to be looking at something dreamy and lovely and secretive Aunt Elizabeth might have had more sympathy with her ambitions. None of us, not even self-sufficing Murrays of New Moon, like to be barred out.

    2

    Those of you who have already followed Emily through her years of New Moon and Shrewsbury must have a tolerable notion what she looked like. For those of you to whom she comes as a stranger let me draw a portrait of her as she seemed to the outward eye at the enchanted portal of seventeen, walking where the golden chrysanthemums lighted up an old autumnal, maritime garden. A place of peace, that garden of New Moon. An enchanted pleasaunce, full of rich, sensuous colors and wonderful spiritual shadows. Scents of pine and rose were in it; boom of bees, threnody of wind, murmurs of the blue Atlantic gulf; and always the soft sighing of the firs in Lofty John Sullivan’s bush to the north of it. Emily loved every flower and shadow and sound in it, every beautiful old tree in and around it, especially her own intimate beloved trees—a cluster of wild cherries in the southwest corner, Three Princesses of Lombardy, a certain maiden-like wild plum on the brook path, the big spruce in the center of the garden, a silver maple and a pine further on, an aspen in another corner always coquetting with gay little winds, and a whole row of stately white birches in Lofty John’s bush.

    Emily was always glad that she lived where there were many trees—old ancestral trees, planted and tended by hands long dead, bound up with everything of joy and sorrow that visited the lives in their shadows.

    A slender, virginal young thing. Hair like black silk. Purplish-gray eyes, with violet shadows under them that always seemed darker and more alluring after Emily had sat up to some unholy and un-Elizabethan hour completing a story or working out the skeleton of a plot; scarlet lips with a Murray-like crease at the corners; ears with Puckish, slightly pointed tips. Perhaps it was the crease and the ears that made certain people think her something of a puss. An exquisite line of chin and neck; a smile with a trick in it; such a slow-blossoming thing with a sudden radiance of fulfillment. And ankles that scandalous old Aunt Nancy Priest of Priest Pond commended. Faint stains of rose in her rounded cheeks that sometimes suddenly deepened to crimson. Very little could bring that transforming flush—a wind off the sea, a sudden glimpse of blue upland, a flame-red poppy, white sails going out of the harbor in the magic of morning, gulf-waters silver under the moon, a Wedgwood-blue columbine in the old orchard. Or a certain whistle in Lofty John’s bush.

    With all this—pretty? I cannot tell you. Emily was never mentioned when Blair Water beauties were being tabulated. But no one who looked upon her face ever forgot it. No one, meeting Emily the second time ever had to say Er—your face seems familiar but— Generations of lovely women were behind her. They had all given her something of personality. She had the grace of running water. Something, too, of its sparkle and limpidity. A thought swayed her like a strong wind. An emotion shook her as a tempest shakes a rose. She was one of those vital creatures of whom, when they do die, we say it seems impossible that they can be dead. Against the background of her practical, sensible clan she shone like a diamond flame. Many people liked her, many disliked her. No one was ever wholly indifferent to her.

    Once, when Emily had been very small, living with her father down in the little old house at Maywood, where he had died, she had started out to seek the rainbow’s end. Over long wet fields and hills she ran, hopeful, expectant. But as she ran the wonderful arch was faded—was dim—was gone. Emily was alone in an alien valley, not too sure in which direction lay home. For a moment her lips quivered, her eyes filled. Then she lifted her face and smiled gallantly at the empty sky.

    There will be other rainbows, she said.

    Emily was a chaser of rainbows.

    3

    Life at New Moon had changed. She must adjust herself to it. A certain loneliness must be reckoned with. Ilse Burnley, the madcap pal of seven faithful years, had gone to the School of Literature and Expression in Montreal. The two girls parted with the tears and vows of girlhood. Never to meet on quite the same ground again. For, disguise the fact as we will, when friends, even the closest—perhaps the more because of that very closeness—meet again after a separation there is always a chill, lesser or greater, of change. Neither finds the other quite the same. This is natural and inevitable. Human nature is ever growing or retrogressing—never stationary. But still, with all our philosophy, who of us can repress a little feeling of bewildered disappointment when we realize that our friend is not and never can be just the same as before—even though the change may be by way of improvement? Emily, with the strange intuition which supplied the place of experience, felt this as Ilse did not, and felt that in a sense she was bidding good-bye forever to the Ilse of New Moon days and Shrewsbury years.

    Perry Miller, too, former hired boy of New Moon, medalist of Shrewsbury High School, rejected but not quite hopeless suitor of Emily, butt of Ilse’s rages, was gone. Perry was studying law in an office in Charlottetown, with his eye fixed firmly on several glittering legal goals. No rainbow ends—no mythical pots of gold for Perry. He knew what he wanted would stay put and he was going after it. People were beginning to believe he would get it. After all, the gulf between the law clerk in Mr. Abel’s office and the Supreme Court bench of Canada was no wider than the gulf between that same law clerk and the barefoot gamin of Stovepipe Town-by-the-Harbor.

    There was more of the rainbow-seeker in Teddy Kent, of the Tansy Patch. He, too, was going. To the School of Design in Montreal. He, too, knew—had known for years—the delight and allurement and despair and anguish of the rainbow quest.

    Even if we never find it, he said to Emily, as they lingered in the New Moon garden under the violet sky of a long, wondrous, northern twilight, on the last evening before he went away, there’s something in the search for it that’s better than even the finding would be.

    "But we will find it, said Emily, lifting her eyes to a star that glittered over the tip of one of the Three Princesses. Something in Teddy’s use of we" thrilled her with its implications. Emily was always very honest with herself and she never attempted to shut her eyes to the knowledge that Teddy Kent meant more to her than anyone else in the world. Whereas she—what did she mean to him? Little? Much? Or nothing?

    She was bareheaded and she had put a star-like cluster of tiny yellow ’mums in her hair. She had thought a good deal about her dress before she decided on her primrose silk. She thought she was looking very well, but what difference did that make if Teddy didn’t notice it? He always took her so for granted, she thought a little rebelliously. Dean Priest, now, would have noticed it and paid her some subtle compliment about it.

    I don’t know, said Teddy, morosely scowling at Emily’s topaz-eyed gray cat, Daffy, who was fancying himself as a skulking tiger in the spirea thicket. I don’t know. Now that I’m really flying the Blue Peter I feel—flat. After all—perhaps I can never do anything worthwhile. A little knack of drawing—what does it amount to? Especially when you’re lying awake at three o’clock at night?

    Oh, I know that feeling, agreed Emily. "Last night I mulled over a story for hours and concluded despairingly that I could never write—that it was no use to try—that I couldn’t do anything really worthwhile. I went to bed on that note and drenched my pillow with tears. Woke up at three and couldn’t even cry. Tears seemed as foolish as laughter—or ambition. I was quite bankrupt in hope and belief. And then I got up in the chilly gray dawn and began a new story. Don’t let a three-o’clock-at-night feeling fog your soul."

    Unfortunately there’s a three o’clock every night, said Teddy. "At that ungodly hour I am always convinced that if you want things too much you’re not likely ever to get them. And there are two things that I want tremendously. One, of course, is to be a great artist. I never supposed I was a coward, Emily, but I’m afraid now. If I don’t make good! Everybody’ll laugh at me. Mother will say she knew it. She hates to see me go really, you know. To go and fail! It would be better not to go."

    No, it wouldn’t, said Emily passionately, wondering at the same time in the back of her head what was the other thing Teddy wanted so tremendously. You must not be afraid. Father said I wasn’t to be afraid of anything in that talk I had with him the night he died. And isn’t it Emerson who said, ‘Always do what you are afraid to do’?

    I’ll bet Emerson said that when he’d got through with being afraid of things. It’s easy to be brave when you’re taking off your harness.

    You know I believe in you, Teddy, said Emily softly.

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