--M.B.]
SCRUTS
_By_
ARN*LD B*NN*TT
I.
Emily Wrackgarth stirred the Christmas pudding till her right arm
began to ache. But she did not cease for that. She stirred on till her
right arm grew so numb that it might have been the right arm of some
girl at the other end of Bursley. And yet something deep down in her
whispered "It is _your_ right arm! And you can do what you like with
it!"
She did what she liked with it. Relentlessly she kept it moving till
it reasserted itself as the arm of Emily Wrackgarth, prickling and
tingling as with red-hot needles in every tendon from wrist to elbow.
And still Emily Wrackgarth hardened her heart.
Presently she saw the spoon no longer revolving, but wavering
aimlessly in the midst of the basin. Ridiculous! This must be seen
to! In the down of dark hairs that connected her eyebrows there was a
marked deepening of that vertical cleft which, visible at all times,
warned you that here was a young woman not to be trifled with. Her
brain despatched to her hand a peremptory message--which miscarried.
The spoon wabbled as though held by a baby. Emily knew that she
herself as a baby had been carried into this very kitchen to stir
the Christmas pudding. Year after year, as she grew up, she had been
allowed to stir it "for luck.
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