Читать книгу Emily of New Moon онлайн

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“Are there any fairies there?” asked Emily, wistfully.

“The woods are full of ’em,” said Cousin Jimmy. “And so are the columbines in the old orchard. We grow columbines there on purpose for the fairies.”

Emily sighed. Since she was eight she had known there were no fairies anywhere nowadays; yet she hadn’t quite given up the hope that one or two might linger in old-fashioned, out-of-the-way spots. And where so likely as at New Moon?

“Really-truly fairies?” she questioned.

“Why, you know, if a fairy was really-truly it wouldn’t be a fairy,” said Uncle Jimmy seriously. “Could it, now?”

Before Emily could think this out the aunts returned and soon they were all on the road again. It was sunset when they came to Blair Water—a rosy sunset that flooded the long, sandy sea-coast with colour and brought red road and fir-darkened hill out in fleeting clearness of outline. Emily looked about her on her new environment and found it good. She saw a big house peering whitely through a veil of tall old trees—no mushroom growth of yesterday’s birches but trees that had loved and been loved by three generations—a glimpse of silver water glistening through the dark spruces—that was the Blair Water itself, she knew—and a tall, golden-white church spire shooting up above the maple woods in the valley below. But it was none of these that brought her the flash—that came with the sudden glimpse of the dear, friendly, little dormer window peeping through vines on the roof—and right over it, in the opalescent sky, a real new moon, golden and slender. Emily was tingling all over with it as Cousin Jimmy lifted her from the buggy and carried her into the kitchen.