Later on I went down to the cellar cupboard and found a mouse caught in a trap by its foot. It flew off quite briskly, and I am sure it felt wonderfully happy. Saucy Sal had caught a poor snowbird and I took it from her.

So I suppose that was not true repentance. Afterwards I was very sorry that I had been in a temper-but I was sorry because it was foolish and undignified, not because it was wicked. I was very angry-sarcastic speeches always aggravate me.

'It was not what I said, but the way I said it that was impertinent. ''No! Snails are no relation to me,' I said haughtily. Aunt Elizabeth looked at me and then at the clock, and said in her most disagreeable way, I didn't suppose there was any hurry and I was composing a story called The Secret of the Mill. She thought I took too long washing the dishes. 'I did only one bad thing to-day-only one thing I think bad, that is. It will be easy, of course, to write down the good deeds, but not so easy to record the bad ones. I mean to be as honest about it as I can. I got the idea out of a book, and it appeals to me.

'I have decided that I will write down, in this journal, every day, all my good deeds and all my bad ones. So let us take another peep into the yellowed pages of that old Jimmy-book, written long ago in the look-out of New Moon. Besides, when one has material ready to hand, why not use it? Emily's diary, with all its youthful crudities and italics, really gives a better interpretation of her and of her imaginative and introspective mind, in that, her fourteenth spring, than any biographer, however sympathetic, could do. This book is not going to be wholly, or even mainly, made up of extracts from Emily's diary but, by way of linking up matters unimportant enough for a chapter in themselves, and yet necessary for a proper understanding of her personality and environment, I am going to include some more of them.

Lucy maud montgomery emily climbs