chapter xxisweet miss lavendar school opened and anne returned to herwork, with fewer theories but considerably more experience. she had several new pupils, six- and seven-year-olds just venturing, round-eyed, into a world of wonder.among them were davy and dora. davy sat with milty boulter, who had beengoing to school for a year and was therefore quite a man of the world. dora had made a compact at sunday schoolthe previous sunday to sit with lily sloane; but lily sloane not coming thefirst day, she was temporarily assigned to
mirabel cotton, who was ten years old and therefore, in dora's eyes, one of the "biggirls." "i think school is great fun," davy toldmarilla when he got home that night. "you said i'd find it hard to sit still andi did... you mostly do tell the truth, i notice...but you can wriggle your legsabout under the desk and that helps a lot. it's splendid to have so many boys to playwith. i sit with milty boulter and he's fine.he's longer than me but i'm wider. it's nicer to sit in the back seats but youcan't sit there till your legs grow long enough to touch the floor.
milty drawed a picture of anne on his slateand it was awful ugly and i told him if he made pictures of anne like that i'd lickhim at recess. i thought first i'd draw one of him and puthorns and a tail on it, but i was afraid it would hurt his feelings, and anne says youshould never hurt anyone's feelings. it seems it's dreadful to have yourfeelings hurt. it's better to knock a boy down than hurthis feelings if you must do something. milty said he wasn't scared of me but he'djust as soon call it somebody else to 'blige me, so he rubbed out anne's name andprinted barbara shaw's under it. milty doesn't like barbara 'cause she callshim a sweet little boy and once she patted
him on his head." dora said primly that she liked school; butshe was very quiet, even for her; and when at twilight marilla bade her go upstairs tobed she hesitated and began to cry. "i'm...i'm frightened," she sobbed. "i...i don't want to go upstairs alone inthe dark." "what notion have you got into your headnow?" demanded marilla. "i'm sure you've gone to bed alone allsummer and never been frightened before." dora still continued to cry, so anne pickedher up, cuddled her sympathetically, and whispered,
"tell anne all about it, sweetheart.what are you frightened of?" "of...of mirabel cotton's uncle," sobbeddora. "mirabel cotton told me all about herfamily today in school. nearly everybody in her family hasdied...all her grandfathers and grandmothers and ever so many uncles andaunts. they have a habit of dying, mirabel says. mirabel's awful proud of having so manydead relations, and she told me what they all died of, and what they said, and howthey looked in their coffins. and mirabel says one of her uncles was seenwalking around the house after he was
buried.her mother saw him. i don't mind the rest so much but i can'thelp thinking about that uncle." anne went upstairs with dora and sat by heruntil she fell asleep. the next day mirabel cotton was kept in atrecess and "gently but firmly" given to understand that when you were sounfortunate as to possess an uncle who persisted in walking about houses after he had been decently interred it was not ingood taste to talk about that eccentric gentleman to your deskmate of tender years.mirabel thought this very harsh. the cottons had not much to boast of.
how was she to keep up her prestige amongher schoolmates if she were forbidden to make capital out of the family ghost?september slipped by into a gold and crimson graciousness of october. one friday evening diana came over."i'd a letter from ella kimball today, anne, and she wants us to go over to teatomorrow afternoon to meet her cousin, irene trent, from town. but we can't get one of our horses to go,for they'll all be in use tomorrow, and your pony is lame...so i suppose we can'tgo." "why can't we walk?" suggested anne.
"if we go straight back through the woodswe'll strike the west grafton road not far from the kimball place.i was through that way last winter and i know the road. it's no more than four miles and we won'thave to walk home, for oliver kimball will be sure to drive us. he'll be only too glad of the excuse, forhe goes to see carrie sloane and they say his father will hardly ever let him have ahorse." it was accordingly arranged that theyshould walk, and the following afternoon they set out, going by way of lover's laneto the back of the cuthbert farm, where
they found a road leading into the heart of acres of glimmering beech and maple woods,which were all in a wondrous glow of flame and gold, lying in a great purple stillnessand peace. "it's as if the year were kneeling to prayin a vast cathedral full of mellow stained light, isn't it?" said anne dreamily."it doesn't seem right to hurry through it, does it? it seems irreverent, like running in achurch." "we must hurry though," said diana,glancing at her watch. "we've left ourselves little enough time asit is."
"well, i'll walk fast but don't ask me totalk," said anne, quickening her pace. "i just want to drink the day's lovelinessin...i feel as if she were holding it out to my lips like a cup of airy wine and i'lltake a sip at every step." perhaps it was because she was so absorbedin "drinking it in" that anne took the left turning when they came to a fork in theroad. she should have taken the right, but everafterward she counted it the most fortunate mistake of her life. they came out finally to a lonely, grassyroad, with nothing in sight along it but ranks of spruce saplings."why, where are we?" exclaimed diana in
bewilderment. "this isn't the west grafton road.""no, it's the base line road in middle grafton," said anne, rather shamefacedly."i must have taken the wrong turning at the fork. i don't know where we are exactly, but wemust be all of three miles from kimballs' still." "then we can't get there by five, for it'shalf past four now," said diana, with a despairing look at her watch. "we'll arrive after they have had theirtea, and they'll have all the bother of
getting ours over again.""we'd better turn back and go home," suggested anne humbly. but diana, after consideration, vetoedthis. "no, we may as well go and spend theevening, since we have come this far." a few yards further on the girls came to aplace where the road forked again. "which of these do we take?" asked dianadubiously. anne shook her head. "i don't know and we can't afford to makeany more mistakes. here is a gate and a lane leading rightinto the wood.
there must be a house at the other side. let us go down and inquire.""what a romantic old lane this it," said diana, as they walked along its twists andturns. it ran under patriarchal old firs whosebranches met above, creating a perpetual gloom in which nothing except moss couldgrow. on either hand were brown wood floors,crossed here and there by fallen lances of sunlight. all was very still and remote, as if theworld and the cares of the world were far away.
"i feel as if we were walking through anenchanted forest," said anne in a hushed tone."do you suppose we'll ever find our way back to the real world again, diana? we shall presently come to a palace with aspellbound princess in it, i think." around the next turn they came in sight,not indeed of a palace, but of a little house almost as surprising as a palacewould have been in this province of conventional wooden farmhouses, all as much alike in general characteristics as if theyhad grown from the same seed. anne stopped short in rapture and dianaexclaimed, "oh, i know where we are now.
that is the little stone house where misslavendar lewis lives...echo lodge, she calls it, i think.i've often heard of it but i've never seen it before. isn't it a romantic spot?""it's the sweetest, prettiest place i ever saw or imagined," said anne delightedly."it looks like a bit out of a story book or a dream." the house was a low-eaved structure builtof undressed blocks of red island sandstone, with a little peaked roof out ofwhich peered two dormer windows, with quaint wooden hoods over them, and twogreat chimneys.
the whole house was covered with aluxuriant growth of ivy, finding easy foothold on the rough stonework and turnedby autumn frosts to most beautiful bronze and wine-red tints. before the house was an oblong garden intowhich the lane gate where the girls were standing opened. the house bounded it on one side; on thethree others it was enclosed by an old stone dyke, so overgrown with moss andgrass and ferns that it looked like a high, green bank. on the right and left the tall, darkspruces spread their palm-like branches
over it; but below it was a little meadow,green with clover aftermath, sloping down to the blue loop of the grafton river. no other house or clearing was insight...nothing but hills and valleys covered with feathery young firs. "i wonder what sort of a person miss lewisis," speculated diana as they opened the gate into the garden."they say she is very peculiar." "she'll be interesting then," said annedecidedly. "peculiar people are always that at least,whatever else they are or are not. didn't i tell you we would come to anenchanted palace?
i knew the elves hadn't woven magic overthat lane for nothing." "but miss lavendar lewis is hardly aspellbound princess," laughed diana. "she's an old maid...she's forty-five andquite gray, i've heard." "oh, that's only part of the spell,"asserted anne confidently. "at heart she's young and beautifulstill...and if we only knew how to unloose the spell she would step forth radiant andfair again. but we don't know how...it's always andonly the prince who knows that ...and miss lavendar's prince hasn't come yet. perhaps some fatal mischance has befallenhim...though that's against the law of all
fairy tales.""i'm afraid he came long ago and went away again," said diana. "they say she used to be engaged to stephanirving...paul's father...when they were young.but they quarreled and parted." "hush," warned anne. "the door is open."the girls paused in the porch under the tendrils of ivy and knocked at the opendoor. there was a patter of steps inside and arather odd little personage presented herself...a girl of about fourteen, with afreckled face, a snub nose, a mouth so wide
that it did really seem as if it stretched "from ear to ear," and two long braids offair hair tied with two enormous bows of blue ribbon."is miss lewis at home?" asked diana. "yes, ma'am. come in, ma'am.i'll tell miss lavendar you're here, ma'am. she's upstairs, ma'am." with this the small handmaiden whisked outof sight and the girls, left alone, looked about them with delighted eyes.the interior of this wonderful little house was quite as interesting as its exterior.
the room had a low ceiling and two square,small-paned windows, curtained with muslin frills. all the furnishings were old-fashioned, butso well and daintily kept that the effect was delicious. but it must be candidly admitted that themost attractive feature, to two healthy girls who had just tramped four milesthrough autumn air, was a table, set out with pale blue china and laden with delicacies, while little golden-hued fernsscattered over the cloth gave it what anne would have termed "a festal air.""miss lavendar must be expecting company to
tea," she whispered. "there are six places set.but what a funny little girl she has. she looked like a messenger from pixy land.i suppose she could have told us the road, but i was curious to see miss lavendar. s...s...sh, she's coming."and with that miss lavendar lewis was standing in the doorway.the girls were so surprised that they forgot good manners and simply stared. they had unconsciously been expecting tosee the usual type of elderly spinster as known to their experience ...a ratherangular personage, with prim gray hair and
spectacles. nothing more unlike miss lavendar couldpossibly be imagined. she was a little lady with snow-white hairbeautifully wavy and thick, and carefully arranged in becoming puffs and coils. beneath it was an almost girlish face, pinkcheeked and sweet lipped, with big soft brown eyes and dimples...actually dimples. she wore a very dainty gown of cream muslinwith pale-hued roses on it...a gown which would have seemed ridiculously juvenile onmost women of her age, but which suited miss lavendar so perfectly that you neverthought about it at all.
"charlotta the fourth says that you wishedto see me," she said, in a voice that matched her appearance. "we wanted to ask the right road to westgrafton," said diana. "we are invited to tea at mr. kimball's,but we took the wrong path coming through the woods and came out to the base lineinstead of the west grafton road. do we take the right or left turning atyour gate?" "the left," said miss lavendar, with ahesitating glance at her tea table. then she exclaimed, as if in a suddenlittle burst of resolution, "but oh, won't you stay and have tea withme?
please, do. mr. kimball's will have tea over before youget there. and charlotta the fourth and i will be soglad to have you." diana looked mute inquiry at anne. "we'd like to stay," said anne promptly,for she had made up her mind that she wanted to know more of this surprising misslavendar, "if it won't inconvenience you. but you are expecting other guests, aren'tyou?" miss lavendar looked at her tea tableagain, and blushed. "i know you'll think me dreadfullyfoolish," she said.
"i am foolish ...and i'm ashamed of it wheni'm found out, but never unless i am found out. i'm not expecting anybody...i was justpretending i was. you see, i was so lonely. i love company... that is, the right kindof company...but so few people ever come here because it is so far out of the way.charlotta the fourth was lonely too. so i just pretended i was going to have atea party. i cooked for it...and decorated the tablefor it... and set it with my mother's wedding china ...and i dressed up for it."
diana secretly thought miss lavendar quiteas peculiar as report had pictured her. the idea of a woman of forty-five playingat having a tea party, just as if she were a little girl! but anne of the shining eyes exclaimedjoyfuly, "oh, do you imagine things too?" that "too" revealed a kindred spirit tomiss lavendar. "yes, i do," she confessed, boldly. "of course it's silly in anybody as old asi am. but what is the use of being an independentold maid if you can't be silly when you want to, and when it doesn't hurt anybody?
a person must have some compensations.i don't believe i could live at times if i didn't pretend things.i'm not often caught at it though, and charlotta the fourth never tells. but i'm glad to be caught today, for youhave really come and i have tea all ready for you.will you go up to the spare room and take off your hats? it's the white door at the head of thestairs. i must run out to the kitchen and see thatcharlotta the fourth isn't letting the tea boil.
charlotta the fourth is a very good girlbut she will let the tea boil." miss lavendar tripped off to the kitchen onhospitable thoughts intent and the girls found their way up to the spare room, anapartment as white as its door, lighted by the ivy-hung dormer window and looking, as anne said, like the place where happydreams grew. "this is quite an adventure, isn't it?"said diana. "and isn't miss lavendar sweet, if she is alittle odd? she doesn't look a bit like an old maid.""she looks just as music sounds, i think," answered anne.
when they went down miss lavendar wascarrying in the teapot, and behind her, looking vastly pleased, was charlotta thefourth, with a plate of hot biscuits. "now, you must tell me your names," saidmiss lavendar. "i'm so glad you are young girls.i love young girls. it's so easy to pretend i'm a girl myselfwhen i'm with them. i do hate"...with a little grimace..."tobelieve i'm old. now, who are you... just for convenience'sake? diana barry?and anne shirley? may i pretend that i've known you for ahundred years and call you anne and diana
right away?""you, may" the girls said both together. "then just let's sit comfily down and eateverything," said miss lavendar happily. "charlotta, you sit at the foot and helpwith the chicken. it is so fortunate that i made the spongecake and doughnuts. of course, it was foolish to do it forimaginary guests... i know charlotta the fourth thought so,didn't you, charlotta? but you see how well it has turned out. of course they wouldn't have been wasted,for charlotta the fourth and i could have eaten them through time.but sponge cake is not a thing that
improves with time." that was a merry and memorable meal; andwhen it was over they all went out to the garden, lying in the glamor of sunset. "i do think you have the loveliest placehere," said diana, looking round her admiringly."why do you call it echo lodge?" asked anne. "charlotta," said miss lavendar, "go intothe house and bring out the little tin horn that is hanging over the clock shelf."charlotta the fourth skipped off and returned with the horn.
"blow it, charlotta," commanded misslavendar. charlotta accordingly blew, a ratherraucous, strident blast. there was moment's stillness...and thenfrom the woods over the river came a multitude of fairy echoes, sweet, elusive,silvery, as if all the "horns of elfland" were blowing against the sunset. anne and diana exclaimed in delight."now laugh, charlotta...laugh loudly." charlotta, who would probably have obeyedif miss lavendar had told her to stand on her head, climbed upon the stone bench andlaughed loud and heartily. back came the echoes, as if a host of pixypeople were mimicking her laughter in the
purple woodlands and along the fir-fringedpoints. "people always admire my echoes very much,"said miss lavendar, as if the echoes were her personal property."i love them myself. they are very good company...with a littlepretending. on calm evenings charlotta the fourth and ioften sit out here and amuse ourselves with them. charlotta, take back the horn and hang itcarefully in its place." "why do you call her charlotta the fourth?"asked diana, who was bursting with curiosity on this point.
"just to keep her from getting mixed upwith other charlottas in my thoughts," said miss lavendar seriously."they all look so much alike there's no telling them apart. her name isn't really charlotta at all.it is...let me see...what is it? i think it's leonora...yes, it is leonora.you see, it is this way. when mother died ten years ago i couldn'tstay here alone... and i couldn't afford to pay the wages of a grown-up girl.so i got little charlotta bowman to come and stay with me for board and clothes. her name really was charlotta...she wascharlotta the first.
she was just thirteen. she stayed with me till she was sixteen andthen she went away to boston, because she could do better there.her sister came to stay with me then. her name was julietta...mrs. bowman had aweakness for fancy names i think ...but she looked so like charlotta that i keptcalling her that all the time ...and she didn't mind. so i just gave up trying to remember herright name. she was charlotta the second, and when shewent away evelina came and she was charlotta the third.
now i have charlotta the fourth; but whenshe is sixteen...she's fourteen now... she will want to go to boston too, and what ishall do then i really do not know. charlotta the fourth is the last of thebowman girls, and the best. the other charlottas always let me see thatthey thought it silly of me to pretend things but charlotta the fourth never does,no matter what she may really think. i don't care what people think about me ifthey don't let me see it." "well," said diana looking regretfully atthe setting sun. "i suppose we must go if we want to get tomr. kimball's before dark. we've had a lovely time, miss lewis.""won't you come again to see me?" pleaded
miss lavendar. tall anne put her arm about the littlelady. "indeed we shall," she promised."now that we have discovered you we'll wear out our welcome coming to see you. yes, we must go...'we must tear ourselves away,' as paul irving says every time he comes to greengables." "paul irving?" there was a subtle change in misslavendar's voice. "who is he?i didn't think there was anybody of that
name in avonlea." anne felt vexed at her own heedlessness.she had forgotten about miss lavendar's old romance when paul's name slipped out."he is a little pupil of mine," she explained slowly. "he came from boston last year to live withhis grandmother, mrs. irving of the shore road.""is he stephen irving's son?" miss lavendar asked, bending over hernamesake border so that her face was hidden."yes." "i'm going to give you girls a bunch oflavendar apiece," said miss lavendar
brightly, as if she had not heard theanswer to her question. "it's very sweet, don't you think? mother always loved it.she planted these borders long ago. father named me lavendar because he was sofond of it. the very first time he saw mother was whenhe visited her home in east grafton with her brother. he fell in love with her at first sight;and they put him in the spare room bed to sleep and the sheets were scented withlavendar and he lay awake all night and thought of her.
he always loved the scent of lavendar afterthat...and that was why he gave me the name.don't forget to come back soon, girls dear. we'll be looking for you, charlotta thefourth and i." she opened the gate under the firs for themto pass through. she looked suddenly old and tired; the glowand radiance had faded from her face; her parting smile was as sweet withineradicable youth as ever, but when the girls looked back from the first curve in the lane they saw her sitting on the oldstone bench under the silver poplar in the middle of the garden with her head leaningwearily on her hand.
"she does look lonely," said diana softly. "we must come often to see her.""i think her parents gave her the only right and fitting name that could possiblybe given her," said anne. "if they had been so blind as to name herelizabeth or nellie or muriel she must have been called lavendar just the same, ithink. it's so suggestive of sweetness and old-fashioned graces and 'silk attire.' now, my name just smacks of bread andbutter, patchwork and chores." "oh, i don't think so," said diana. "anne seems to me real stately and like aqueen.
but i'd like kerrenhappuch if it happenedto be your name. i think people make their names nice orugly just by what they are themselves. i can't bear josie or gertie for names nowbut before i knew the pye girls i thought them real pretty." "that's a lovely idea, diana," said anneenthusiastically. "living so that you beautify your name,even if it wasn't beautiful to begin with ...making it stand in people's thoughts forsomething so lovely and pleasant that they never think of it by itself. thank you, diana."
chapter xxiiodds and ends "so you had tea at the stone house withlavendar lewis?" said marilla at the breakfast table next morning."what is she like now? it's over fifteen years since i saw herlast...it was one sunday in grafton church. i suppose she has changed a great deal. davy keith, when you want something youcan't reach, ask to have it passed and don't spread yourself over the table inthat fashion. did you ever see paul irving doing thatwhen he was here to meals?" "but paul's arms are longer'n mine,"brumbled davy.
"they've had eleven years to grow andmine've only had seven. 'sides, i did ask, but you and anne was sobusy talking you didn't pay any 'tention. 'sides, paul's never been here to any mealescept tea, and it's easier to be p'lite at tea than at breakfast.you ain't half as hungry. it's an awful long while between supper andbreakfast. now, anne, that spoonful ain't any biggerthan it was last year and i'm ever so much bigger." "of course, i don't know what miss lavendarused to look like but i don't fancy somehow that she has changed a great deal," saidanne, after she had helped davy to maple
syrup, giving him two spoonfuls to pacifyhim. "her hair is snow-white but her face isfresh and almost girlish, and she has the sweetest brown eyes...such a pretty shadeof wood-brown with little golden glints in them... and her voice makes you think of white satin and tinkling water and fairybells all mixed up together." "she was reckoned a great beauty when shewas a girl," said marilla. "i never knew her very well but i liked heras far as i did know her. some folks thought her peculiar even then. davy, if ever i catch you at such a trickagain you'll be made to wait for your meals
till everyone else is done, like thefrench." most conversations between anne and marillain the presence of the twins, were punctuated by these rebukes davy-ward. in this instance, davy, sad to relate, notbeing able to scoop up the last drops of his syrup with his spoon, had solved thedifficulty by lifting his plate in both hands and applying his small pink tongue toit. anne looked at him with such horrified eyesthat the little sinner turned red and said, half shamefacedly, half defiantly, "there ain't any wasted that way.""people who are different from other people
are always called peculiar," said anne. "and miss lavendar is certainly different,though it's hard to say just where the difference comes in.perhaps it is because she is one of those people who never grow old." "one might as well grow old when all yourgeneration do," said marilla, rather reckless of her pronouns."if you don't, you don't fit in anywhere. far as i can learn lavendar lewis has justdropped out of everything. she's lived in that out of the way placeuntil everybody has forgotten her. that stone house is one of the oldest onthe island.
old mr. lewis built it eighty years agowhen he came out from england. davy, stop joggling dora's elbow. oh, i saw you!you needn't try to look innocent. what does make you behave so this morning?""maybe i got out of the wrong side of the bed," suggested davy. "milty boulter says if you do that thingsare bound to go wrong with you all day. his grandmother told him.but which is the right side? and what are you to do when your bed'sagainst the wall? i want to know."
"i've always wondered what went wrongbetween stephen irving and lavendar lewis," continued marilla, ignoring davy. "they were certainly engaged twenty-fiveyears ago and then all at once it was broken off. i don't know what the trouble was but itmust have been something terrible, for he went away to the states and never come homesince." "perhaps it was nothing very dreadful afterall. i think the little things in life oftenmake more trouble than the big things," said anne, with one of those flashes ofinsight which experience could not have
bettered. "marilla, please don't say anything aboutmy being at miss lavendar's to mrs. lynde. she'd be sure to ask a hundred questionsand somehow i wouldn't like it...nor miss lavendar either if she knew, i feel sure." "i daresay rachel would be curious,"admitted marilla, "though she hasn't as much time as she used to have for lookingafter other people's affairs. she's tied home now on account of thomas;and she's feeling pretty downhearted, for i think she's beginning to lose hope of hisever getting better. rachel will be left pretty lonely ifanything happens to him, with all her
children settled out west, except eliza intown; and she doesn't like her husband." marilla's pronouns slandered eliza, who wasvery fond of her husband. "rachel says if he'd only brace up andexert his will power he'd get better. but what is the use of asking a jellyfishto sit up straight?" continued marilla. "thomas lynde never had any will power toexert. his mother ruled him till he married andthen rachel carried it on. it's a wonder he dared to get sick withoutasking her permission. but there, i shouldn't talk so. rachel has been a good wife to him.he'd never have amounted to anything
without her, that's certain. he was born to be ruled; and it's well hefell into the hands of a clever, capable manager like rachel.he didn't mind her way. it saved him the bother of ever making uphis own mind about anything. davy, do stop squirming like an eel.""i've nothing else to do," protested davy. "i can't eat any more, and it's no funwatching you and anne eat." "well, you and dora go out and give thehens their wheat," said marilla. "and don't you try to pull any morefeathers out of the white rooster's tail either.""i wanted some feathers for an injun
headdress," said davy sulkily. "milty boulter has a dandy one, made out ofthe feathers his mother give him when she killed their old white gobbler.you might let me have some. that rooster's got ever so many more'n hewants." "you may have the old feather duster in thegarret," said anne, "and i'll dye them green and red and yellow for you." "you do spoil that boy dreadfully," saidmarilla, when davy, with a radiant face, had followed prim dora out. marilla's education had made great stridesin the past six years; but she had not yet
been able to rid herself of the idea thatit was very bad for a child to have too many of its wishes indulged. "all the boys of his class have indianheaddresses, and davy wants one too," said "i know how it feels...i'll never forgethow i used to long for puffed sleeves when all the other girls had them.and davy isn't being spoiled. he is improving every day. think what a difference there is in himsince he came here a year ago." "he certainly doesn't get into as muchmischief since he began to go to school," acknowledged marilla.
"i suppose he works off the tendency withthe other boys. but it's a wonder to me we haven't heardfrom richard keith before this. never a word since last may." "i'll be afraid to hear from him," sighedanne, beginning to clear away the dishes. "if a letter should come i'd dread openingit, for fear it would tell us to send the twins to him." a month later a letter did come.but it was not from richard keith. a friend of his wrote to say that richardkeith had died of consumption a fortnight previously.
the writer of the letter was the executorof his will and by that will the sum of two thousand dollars was left to miss marillacuthbert in trust for david and dora keith until they came of age or married. in the meantime the interest was to be usedfor their maintenance. "it seems dreadful to be glad of anythingin connection with a death," said anne soberly. "i'm sorry for poor mr. keith; but i amglad that we can keep the twins." "it's a very good thing about the money,"said marilla practically. "i wanted to keep them but i really didn'tsee how i could afford to do it, especially
when they grew older. the rent of the farm doesn't do any morethan keep the house and i was bound that not a cent of your money should be spent onthem. you do far too much for them as it is. dora didn't need that new hat you boughther any more than a cat needs two tails. but now the way is made clear and they areprovided for." davy and dora were delighted when theyheard that they were to live at green gables, "for good." the death of an uncle whom they had neverseen could not weigh a moment in the
balance against that.but dora had one misgiving. "was uncle richard buried?" she whisperedto anne. "yes, dear, of course." "he...he...isn't like mirabel cotton'suncle, is he?" in a still more agitated whisper."he won't walk about houses after being buried, will he, anne?" chapter xxiiimiss lavendar's romance "i think i'll take a walk through to echolodge this evening," said anne, one friday afternoon in december."it looks like snow," said marilla
dubiously. "i'll be there before the snow comes and imean to stay all night. diana can't go because she has company, andi'm sure miss lavendar will be looking for me tonight. it's a whole fortnight since i was there."anne had paid many a visit to echo lodge since that october day. sometimes she and diana drove around by theroad; sometimes they walked through the woods.when diana could not go anne went alone. between her and miss lavendar had sprung upone of those fervent, helpful friendships
possible only between a woman who has keptthe freshness of youth in her heart and soul, and a girl whose imagination andintuition supplied the place of experience. anne had at last discovered a real "kindredspirit," while into the little lady's lonely, sequestered life of dreams anne anddiana came with the wholesome joy and exhilaration of the outer existence, which miss lavendar, "the world forgetting, bythe world forgot," had long ceased to share; they brought an atmosphere of youthand reality to the little stone house. charlotta the fourth always greeted themwith her very widest smile...and charlotta's smiles were fearfullywide...loving them for the sake of her
adored mistress as well as for their own. never had there been such "high jinks" heldin the little stone house as were held there that beautiful, late-lingeringautumn, when november seemed october over again, and even december aped the sunshineand hazes of summer. but on this particular day it seemed as ifdecember had remembered that it was time for winter and had turned suddenly dull andbrooding, with a windless hush predictive of coming snow. nevertheless, anne keenly enjoyed her walkthrough the great gray maze of the beechlands; though alone she never found itlonely; her imagination peopled her path
with merry companions, and with these she carried on a gay, pretended conversationthat was wittier and more fascinating than conversations are apt to be in real life,where people sometimes fail most lamentably to talk up to the requirements. in a "make believe" assembly of choicespirits everybody says just the thing you want her to say and so gives you the chanceto say just what you want to say. attended by this invisible company, annetraversed the woods and arrived at the fir lane just as broad, feathery flakes beganto flutter down softly. at the first bend she came upon misslavendar, standing under a big, broad-
branching fir. she wore a gown of warm, rich red, and herhead and shoulders were wrapped in a silvery gray silk shawl."you look like the queen of the fir wood fairies," called anne merrily. "i thought you would come tonight, anne,"said miss lavendar, running forward. "and i'm doubly glad, for charlotta thefourth is away. her mother is sick and she had to go homefor the night. i should have been very lonely if youhadn't come...even the dreams and the echoes wouldn't have been enough company.
oh, anne, how pretty you are," she addedsuddenly, looking up at the tall, slim girl with the soft rose-flush of walking on herface. "how pretty and how young! it's so delightful to be seventeen, isn'tit? i do envy you," concluded miss lavendarcandidly. "but you are only seventeen at heart,"smiled anne. "no, i'm old...or rather middle-aged, whichis far worse," sighed miss lavendar. "sometimes i can pretend i'm not, but atother times i realize it. and i can't reconcile myself to it as mostwomen seem to.
i'm just as rebellious as i was when idiscovered my first gray hair. now, anne, don't look as if you were tryingto understand. seventeen can't understand. i'm going to pretend right away that i amseventeen too, and i can do it, now that you're here.you always bring youth in your hand like a gift. we're going to have a jolly evening.tea first...what do you want for tea? we'll have whatever you like.do think of something nice and indigestible."
there were sounds of riot and mirth in thelittle stone house that night. what with cooking and feasting and makingcandy and laughing and "pretending," it is quite true that miss lavendar and annecomported themselves in a fashion entirely unsuited to the dignity of a spinster offorty-five and a sedate schoolma'am. then, when they were tired, they sat downon the rug before the grate in the parlor, lighted only by the soft fireshine andperfumed deliciously by miss lavendar's open rose-jar on the mantel. the wind had risen and was sighing andwailing around the eaves and the snow was thudding softly against the windows, as ifa hundred storm sprites were tapping for
entrance. "i'm so glad you're here, anne," said misslavendar, nibbling at her candy. "if you weren't i should be blue...veryblue... almost navy blue. dreams and make-believes are all very wellin the daytime and the sunshine, but when dark and storm come they fail to satisfy.one wants real things then. but you don't know this...seventeen neverknows it. at seventeen dreams do satisfy because youthink the realities are waiting for you further on. when i was seventeen, anne, i didn't thinkforty-five would find me a white-haired
little old maid with nothing but dreams tofill my life." "but you aren't an old maid," said anne,smiling into miss lavendar's wistful woodbrown eyes."old maids are born...they don't become." "some are born old maids, some achieve oldmaidenhood, and some have old maidenhood thrust upon them," parodied miss lavendarwhimsically. "you are one of those who have achieved itthen," laughed anne, "and you've done it so beautifully that if every old maid werelike you they would come into the fashion, i think." "i always like to do things as well aspossible," said miss lavendar meditatively,
"and since an old maid i had to be i wasdetermined to be a very nice one. people say i'm odd; but it's just because ifollow my own way of being an old maid and refuse to copy the traditional pattern.anne, did anyone ever tell you anything about stephen irving and me?" "yes," said anne candidly, "i've heard thatyou and he were engaged once." "so we were...twenty-five years ago...alifetime ago. and we were to have been married the nextspring. i had my wedding dress made, althoughnobody but mother and stephen ever knew that.
we'd been engaged in a way almost all ourlives, you might say. when stephen was a little boy his motherwould bring him here when she came to see my mother; and the second time he evercame... he was nine and i was six...he told me out in the garden that he had pretty well made up his mind to marry me when hegrew up. i remember that i said 'thank you'; andwhen he was gone i told mother very gravely that there was a great weight off my mind,because i wasn't frightened any more about having to be an old maid. how poor mother laughed!""and what went wrong?" asked anne
breathlessly."we had just a stupid, silly, commonplace quarrel. so commonplace that, if you'll believe me,i don't even remember just how it began. i hardly know who was the more to blame forit. stephen did really begin it, but i supposei provoked him by some foolishness of mine. he had a rival or two, you see.i was vain and coquettish and liked to tease him a little. he was a very high-strung, sensitivefellow. well, we parted in a temper on both sides.
but i thought it would all come right; andit would have if stephen hadn't come back too soon.anne, my dear, i'm sorry to say" ... miss lavendar dropped her voice as if shewere about to confess a predilection for murdering people, "that i am a dreadfullysulky person. oh, you needn't smile,... it's only tootrue. i do sulk; and stephen came back before ihad finished sulking. i wouldn't listen to him and i wouldn'tforgive him; and so he went away for good. he was too proud to come again.and then i sulked because he didn't come. i might have sent for him perhaps, but icouldn't humble myself to do that.
i was just as proud as he was...pride andsulkiness make a very bad combination, but i could never care for anybody else andi didn't want to. i knew i would rather be an old maid for athousand years than marry anybody who wasn't stephen irving. well, it all seems like a dream now, ofcourse. how sympathetic you look, anne...assympathetic as only seventeen can look. but don't overdo it. i'm really a very happy, contented littleperson in spite of my broken heart. my heart did break, if ever a heart did,when i realized that stephen irving was not
coming back. but, anne, a broken heart in real lifeisn't half as dreadful as it is in books. it's a good deal like a bad tooth...thoughyou won't think that a very romantic simile. it takes spells of aching and gives you asleepless night now and then, but between times it lets you enjoy life and dreams andechoes and peanut candy as if there were nothing the matter with it. and now you're looking disappointed. you don't think i'm half as interesting aperson as you did five minutes ago when you
believed i was always the prey of a tragicmemory bravely hidden beneath external smiles. that's the worst...or the best... of reallife, anne. it won't let you be miserable. it keeps on trying to make youcomfortable...and succeeding...even when you're determined to be unhappy andromantic. isn't this candy scrumptious? i've eaten far more than is good for mealready but i'm going to keep recklessly on."after a little silence miss lavendar said
abruptly, "it gave me a shock to hear about stephen'sson that first day you were here, anne. i've never been able to mention him to yousince, but i've wanted to know all about him. what sort of a boy is he?""he is the dearest, sweetest child i ever knew, miss lavendar... and he pretendsthings too, just as you and i do." "i'd like to see him," said miss lavendarsoftly, as if talking to herself. "i wonder if he looks anything like thelittle dream-boy who lives here with me...my little dream-boy."
"if you would like to see paul i'll bringhim through with me sometime," said anne. "i would like it...but not too soon.i want to get used to the thought. there might be more pain than pleasure init...if he looked too much like stephen...or if he didn't look enough likehim. in a month's time you may bring him." accordingly, a month later anne and paulwalked through the woods to the stone house, and met miss lavendar in the lane.she had not been expecting them just then and she turned very pale. "so this is stephen's boy," she said in alow tone, taking paul's hand and looking at
him as he stood, beautiful and boyish, inhis smart little fur coat and cap. "he...he is very like his father." "everybody says i'm a chip off the oldblock," remarked paul, quite at his ease. anne, who had been watching the littlescene, drew a relieved breath. she saw that miss lavendar and paul had"taken" to each other, and that there would be no constraint or stiffness. miss lavendar was a very sensible person,in spite of her dreams and romance, and after that first little betrayal she tuckedher feelings out of sight and entertained paul as brightly and naturally as if hewere anybody's son who had come to see her.
they all had a jolly afternoon together andsuch a feast of fat things by way of supper as would have made old mrs. irving hold upher hands in horror, believing that paul's digestion would be ruined for ever. "come again, laddie," said miss lavendar,shaking hands with him at parting. "you may kiss me if you like," said paulgravely. miss lavendar stooped and kissed him. "how did you know i wanted to?" shewhispered. "because you looked at me just as my littlemother used to do when she wanted to kiss me.
as a rule, i don't like to be kissed.boys don't. you know, miss lewis.but i think i rather like to have you kiss and of course i'll come to see you again.i think i'd like to have you for a particular friend of mine, if you don'tobject." "i...i don't think i shall object," saidmiss lavendar. she turned and went in very quickly; but amoment later she was waving a gay and smiling good-bye to them from the window. "i like miss lavendar," announced paul, asthey walked through the beech woods. "i like the way she looked at me, and ilike her stone house, and i like charlotta
the fourth. i wish grandma irving had a charlotta thefourth instead of a mary joe. i feel sure charlotta the fourth wouldn'tthink i was wrong in my upper story when i told her what i think about things. wasn't that a splendid tea we had, teacher?grandma says a boy shouldn't be thinking about what he gets to eat, but he can'thelp it sometimes when he is real hungry. you know, teacher. i don't think miss lavendar would make aboy eat porridge for breakfast if he didn't like it.she'd get things for him he did like.
but of course"... paul was nothing if not fair-minded..."thatmightn't be very good for him. it's very nice for a change though,teacher. you know." chapter xxiva prophet in his own country one may day avonlea folks were mildlyexcited over some "avonlea notes," signed "observer," which appeared in thecharlottetown 'daily enterprise.' gossip ascribed the authorship thereof tocharlie sloane, partly because the said charlie had indulged in similar literaryflights in times past, and partly because
one of the notes seemed to embody a sneerat gilbert blythe. avonlea juvenile society persisted inregarding gilbert blythe and charlie sloane as rivals in the good graces of a certaindamsel with gray eyes and an imagination. gossip, as usual, was wrong. gilbert blythe, aided and abetted by anne,had written the notes, putting in the one about himself as a blind.only two of the notes have any bearing on this history: "rumor has it that there will be a weddingin our village ere the daisies are in bloom.
a new and highly respected citizen willlead to the hymeneal altar one of our most popular ladies. "uncle abe, our well-known weather prophet,predicts a violent storm of thunder and lightning for the evening of the twenty-third of may, beginning at seven o'clock sharp. the area of the storm will extend over thegreater part of the province. people traveling that evening will do wellto take umbrellas and mackintoshes with them." "uncle abe really has predicted a storm forsometime this spring," said gilbert, "but
do you suppose mr. harrison really does goto see isabella andrews?" "no," said anne, laughing, "i'm sure heonly goes to play checkers with mr. harrison andrews, but mrs. lynde says sheknows isabella andrews must be going to get married, she's in such good spirits thisspring." poor old uncle abe felt rather indignantover the notes. he suspected that "observer" was making funof him. he angrily denied having assigned anyparticular date for his storm but nobody believed him. life in avonlea continued on the smooth andeven tenor of its way.
the "planting" was put in; the improverscelebrated an arbor day. each improver set out, or caused to be setout, five ornamental trees. as the society now numbered forty members,this meant a total of two hundred young trees. early oats greened over the red fields;apple orchards flung great blossoming arms about the farmhouses and the snow queenadorned itself as a bride for her husband. anne liked to sleep with her window openand let the cherry fragrance blow over her face all night.she thought it very poetical. marilla thought she was risking her life.
"thanksgiving should be celebrated in thespring," said anne one evening to marilla, as they sat on the front door steps andlistened to the silver-sweet chorus of the frogs. "i think it would be ever so much betterthan having it in november when everything is dead or asleep. then you have to remember to be thankful;but in may one simply can't help being thankful... that they are alive, if fornothing else. i feel exactly as eve must have felt in thegarden of eden before the trouble began. is that grass in the hollow green orgolden?
it seems to me, marilla, that a pearl of aday like this, when the blossoms are out and the winds don't know where to blow fromnext for sheer crazy delight must be pretty near as good as heaven." marilla looked scandalized and glancedapprehensively around to make sure the twins were not within earshot.they came around the corner of the house just then. "ain't it an awful nice-smelling evening?"asked davy, sniffing delightedly as he swung a hoe in his grimy hands.he had been working in his garden. that spring marilla, by way of turningdavy's passion for reveling in mud and clay
into useful channels, had given him anddora a small plot of ground for a garden. both had eagerly gone to work in acharacteristic fashion. dora planted, weeded, and wateredcarefully, systematically, and dispassionately. as a result, her plot was already greenwith prim, orderly little rows of vegetables and annuals. davy, however, worked with more zeal thandiscretion; he dug and hoed and raked and watered and transplanted so energeticallythat his seeds had no chance for their lives.
"how is your garden coming on, davy-boy?"asked anne. "kind of slow," said davy with a sigh."i don't know why the things don't grow better. milty boulter says i must have planted themin the dark of the moon and that's the whole trouble. he says you must never sow seeds or killpork or cut your hair or do any 'portant thing in the wrong time of the moon.is that true, anne? "maybe if you didn't pull your plants up bythe roots every other day to see how they're getting on 'at the other end,'they'd do better," said marilla
sarcastically. "i only pulled six of them up," protesteddavy. "i wanted to see if there was grubs at theroots. milty boulter said if it wasn't the moon'sfault it must be grubs. but i only found one grub.he was a great big juicy curly grub. i put him on a stone and got another stoneand smashed him flat. he made a jolly squish i tell you.i was sorry there wasn't more of them. dora's garden was planted same time's mineand her things are growing all right. it can't be the moon," davy concluded in areflective tone.
"marilla, look at that apple tree," saidanne. "why, the thing is human. it is reaching out long arms to pick itsown pink skirts daintily up and provoke us to admiration.""those yellow duchess trees always bear well," said marilla complacently. "that tree'll be loaded this year.i'm real glad...they're great for pies." but neither marilla nor anne nor anybodyelse was fated to make pies out of yellow duchess apples that year. the twenty-third of may came...anunseasonably warm day, as none realized
more keenly than anne and her littlebeehive of pupils, sweltering over fractions and syntax in the avonleaschoolroom. a hot breeze blew all the forenoon; butafter noon hour it died away into a heavy stillness. at half past three anne heard a low rumbleof thunder. she promptly dismissed school at once, sothat the children might get home before the storm came. as they went out to the playground anneperceived a certain shadow and gloom over the world in spite of the fact that the sunwas still shining brightly.
annetta bell caught her hand nervously. "oh, teacher, look at that awful cloud!"anne looked and gave an exclamation of dismay. in the northwest a mass of cloud, such asshe had never in all her life beheld before, was rapidly rolling up. it was dead black, save where its curledand fringed edges showed a ghastly, livid white. there was something about it indescribablymenacing as it gloomed up in the clear blue sky; now and again a bolt of lightning shotacross it, followed by a savage growl.
it hung so low that it almost seemed to betouching the tops of the wooded hills. mr. harmon andrews came clattering up thehill in his truck wagon, urging his team of grays to their utmost speed. he pulled them to a halt opposite theschool. "guess uncle abe's hit it for once in hislife, anne," he shouted. "his storm's coming a leetle ahead of time. did ye ever see the like of that cloud? here, all you young ones, that are going myway, pile in, and those that ain't scoot for the post office if ye've more'n aquarter of a mile to go, and stay there
till the shower's over." anne caught davy and dora by the hands andflew down the hill, along the birch path, and past violet vale and willowmere, asfast as the twins' fat legs could go. they reached green gables not a moment toosoon and were joined at the door by marilla, who had been hustling her ducksand chickens under shelter. as they dashed into the kitchen the lightseemed to vanish, as if blown out by some mighty breath; the awful cloud rolled overthe sun and a darkness as of late twilight fell across the world. at the same moment, with a crash of thunderand a blinding glare of lightning, the hail
swooped down and blotted the landscape outin one white fury. through all the clamor of the storm camethe thud of torn branches striking the house and the sharp crack of breakingglass. in three minutes every pane in the west andnorth windows was broken and the hail poured in through the apertures coveringthe floor with stones, the smallest of which was as big as a hen's egg. for three quarters of an hour the stormraged unabated and no one who underwent it ever forgot it. marilla, for once in her life shaken out ofher composure by sheer terror, knelt by her
rocking chair in a corner of the kitchen,gasping and sobbing between the deafening thunder peals. anne, white as paper, had dragged the sofaaway from the window and sat on it with a twin on either side.davy at the first crash had howled, "anne, anne, is it the judgment day? anne, anne, i never meant to be naughty,"and then had buried his face in anne's lap and kept it there, his little bodyquivering. dora, somewhat pale but quite composed, satwith her hand clasped in anne's, quiet and motionless.it is doubtful if an earthquake would have
disturbed dora. then, almost as suddenly as it began, thestorm ceased. the hail stopped, the thunder rolled andmuttered away to the eastward, and the sun burst out merry and radiant over a world sochanged that it seemed an absurd thing to think that a scant three quarters of an hour could have effected such atransformation. marilla rose from her knees, weak andtrembling, and dropped on her rocker. her face was haggard and she looked tenyears older. "have we all come out of that alive?" sheasked solemnly.
"you bet we have," piped davy cheerfully,quite his own man again. "i wasn't a bit scared either...only justat the first. it come on a fellow so sudden. i made up my mind quick as a wink that iwouldn't fight teddy sloane monday as i'd promised; but now maybe i will.say, dora, was you scared?" "yes, i was a little scared," said doraprimly, "but i held tight to anne's hand and said my prayers over and over again." "well, i'd have said my prayers too if i'dhave thought of it," said davy; "but," he added triumphantly, "you see i came throughjust as safe as you for all i didn't say
anne got marilla a glassful of her potentcurrant wine...how potent it was anne, in her earlier days, had had all too goodreason to know ...and then they went to the door to look out on the strange scene. far and wide was a white carpet, knee deep,of hailstones; drifts of them were heaped up under the eaves and on the steps. when, three or four days later, thosehailstones melted, the havoc they had wrought was plainly seen, for every greengrowing thing in the field or garden was cut off. not only was every blossom stripped fromthe apple trees but great boughs and
branches were wrenched away. and out of the two hundred trees set out bythe improvers by far the greater number were snapped off or torn to shreds."can it possibly be the same world it was an hour ago?" asked anne, dazedly. "it must have taken longer than that toplay such havoc." "the like of this has never been known inprince edward island," said marilla, "never. i remember when i was a girl there was abad storm, but it was nothing to this. we'll hear of terrible destruction, you maybe sure."
"i do hope none of the children were caughtout in it," murmured anne anxiously. as it was discovered later, none of thechildren had been, since all those who had any distance to go had taken mr. andrews'excellent advice and sought refuge at the post office. "there comes john henry carter," saidmarilla. john henry came wading through thehailstones with a rather scared grin. "oh, ain't this awful, miss cuthbert? mr. harrison sent me over to see if youshad come out all right." "we're none of us killed," said marillagrimly, "and none of the buildings was
struck. i hope you got off equally well.""yas'm. not quite so well, ma'am.we was struck. the lightning knocked over the kitchenchimbly and come down the flue and knocked over ginger's cage and tore a hole in thefloor and went into the sullar. yas'm." "was ginger hurt?" queried anne."yas'm. he was hurt pretty bad.he was killed." later on anne went over to comfort mr.harrison.
she found him sitting by the table,stroking ginger's gay dead body with a trembling hand. "poor ginger won't call you any more names,anne," he said mournfully. anne could never have imagined herselfcrying on ginger's account, but the tears came into her eyes. "he was all the company i had, anne...andnow he's dead. well, well, i'm an old fool to care somuch. i'll let on i don't care. i know you're going to say somethingsympathetic as soon as i stop talking...but
don't.if you did i'd cry like a baby. hasn't this been a terrible storm? i guess folks won't laugh at uncle abe'spredictions again. seems as if all the storms that he's beenprophesying all his life that never happened came all at once. beats all how he struck the very daythough, don't it? look at the mess we have here.i must hustle round and get some boards to patch up that hole in the floor." avonlea folks did nothing the next day butvisit each other and compare damages.
the roads were impassable for wheels byreason of the hailstones, so they walked or rode on horseback. the mail came late with ill tidings fromall over the province. houses had been struck, people killed andinjured; the whole telephone and telegraph system had been disorganized, and anynumber of young stock exposed in the fields had perished. uncle abe waded out to the blacksmith'sforge early in the morning and spent the whole day there.it was uncle abe's hour of triumph and he enjoyed it to the full.
it would be doing uncle abe an injustice tosay that he was glad the storm had happened; but since it had to be he wasvery glad he had predicted it...to the very day, too. uncle abe forgot that he had ever deniedsetting the day. as for the trifling discrepancy in thehour, that was nothing. gilbert arrived at green gables in theevening and found marilla and anne busily engaged in nailing strips of oilcloth overthe broken windows. "goodness only knows when we'll get glassfor them," said marilla. "mr. barry went over to carmody thisafternoon but not a pane could he get for
love or money. lawson and blair were cleaned out by thecarmody people by ten o'clock. was the storm bad at white sands, gilbert?""i should say so. i was caught in the school with all thechildren and i thought some of them would go mad with fright. three of them fainted, and two girls tookhysterics, and tommy blewett did nothing but shriek at the top of his voice thewhole time." "i only squealed once," said davy proudly. "my garden was all smashed flat," hecontinued mournfully, "but so was dora's,"
he added in a tone which indicated thatthere was yet balm in gilead. anne came running down from the west gable. "oh, gilbert, have you heard the news?mr. levi boulter's old house was struck and burned to the ground. it seems to me that i'm dreadfully wickedto feel glad over that, when so much damage has been done.mr. boulter says he believes the a.v.i.s. magicked up that storm on purpose." "well, one thing is certain," said gilbert,laughing, "'observer' has made uncle abe's reputation as a weather prophet.'uncle abe's storm' will go down in local
history. it is a most extraordinary coincidence thatit should have come on the very day we selected.i actually have a half guilty feeling, as if i really had 'magicked' it up. we may as well rejoice over the old housebeing removed, for there's not much to rejoice over where our young trees areconcerned. not ten of them have escaped." "ah, well, we'll just have to plant themover again next spring," said anne philosophically.
"that is one good thing about thisworld...there are always sure to be more springs." chapter xxvan avonlea scandal one blithe june morning, a fortnight afteruncle abe's storm, anne came slowly through the green gables yard from the garden,carrying in her hands two blighted stalks of white narcissus. "look, marilla," she said sorrowfully,holding up the flowers before the eyes of a grim lady, with her hair coifed in a greengingham apron, who was going into the house with a plucked chicken, "these are the only
buds the storm spared...and even they areimperfect. i'm so sorry ...i wanted some for matthew's grave. he was always so fond of june lilies." "i kind of miss them myself," admittedmarilla, "though it doesn't seem right to lament over them when so many worse thingshave happened...all the crops destroyed as well as the fruit." "but people have sown their oats overagain," said anne comfortingly, "and mr. harrison says he thinks if we have a goodsummer they will come out all right though late.
and my annuals are all coming up again...but oh, nothing can replace the june lilies.poor little hester gray will have none either. i went all the way back to her garden lastnight but there wasn't one. i'm sure she'll miss them." "i don't think it's right for you to saysuch things, anne, i really don't," said marilla severely."hester gray has been dead for thirty years and her spirit is in heaven...i hope." "yes, but i believe she loves and remembersher garden here still," said anne.
"i'm sure no matter how long i'd lived inheaven i'd like to look down and see somebody putting flowers on my grave. if i had had a garden here like hestergray's it would take me more than thirty years, even in heaven, to forget beinghomesick for it by spells." "well, don't let the twins hear you talkinglike that," was marilla's feeble protest, as she carried her chicken into the house. anne pinned her narcissi on her hair andwent to the lane gate, where she stood for awhile sunning herself in the junebrightness before going in to attend to her saturday morning duties.
the world was growing lovely again; oldmother nature was doing her best to remove the traces of the storm, and, though shewas not to succeed fully for many a moon, she was really accomplishing wonders. "i wish i could just be idle all daytoday," anne told a bluebird, who was singing and swinging on a willow bough,"but a schoolma'am, who is also helping to bring up twins, can't indulge in laziness,birdie. how sweet you are singing, little bird. you are just putting the feelings of myheart into song ever so much better than i could myself.why, who is coming?"
an express wagon was jolting up the lane,with two people on the front seat and a big trunk behind. when it drew near anne recognized thedriver as the son of the station agent at bright river; but his companion was astranger...a scrap of a woman who sprang nimbly down at the gate almost before thehorse came to a standstill. she was a very pretty little person,evidently nearer fifty than forty, but with rosy cheeks, sparkling black eyes, andshining black hair, surmounted by a wonderful beflowered and beplumed bonnet. in spite of having driven eight miles overa dusty road she was as neat as if she had
just stepped out of the proverbial bandbox."is this where mr. james a. harrison lives?" she inquired briskly. "no, mr. harrison lives over there," saidanne, quite lost in astonishment. "well, i did think this place seemed tootidy...much too tidy for james a. to be living here, unless he has greatly changedsince i knew him," chirped the little lady. "is it true that james a. is going to bemarried to some woman living in this settlement?" "no, oh no," cried anne, flushing soguiltily that the stranger looked curiously at her, as if she half suspected her ofmatrimonial designs on mr. harrison.
"but i saw it in an island paper,"persisted the fair unknown. "a friend sent a marked copy tome...friends are always so ready to do such things. james a.'s name was written in over 'newcitizen.'" "oh, that note was only meant as a joke,"gasped anne. "mr. harrison has no intention of marryinganybody. i assure you he hasn't." "i'm very glad to hear it," said the rosylady, climbing nimbly back to her seat in the wagon, "because he happens to bemarried already.
i am his wife. oh, you may well look surprised.i suppose he has been masquerading as a bachelor and breaking hearts right andleft. well, well, james a.," nodding vigorouslyover the fields at the long white house, "your fun is over. i am here...though i wouldn't have botheredcoming if i hadn't thought you were up to some mischief.i suppose," turning to anne, "that parrot of his is as profane as ever?" "his parrot...is dead...i think," gaspedpoor anne, who couldn't have felt sure of
her own name at that precise moment."dead! everything will be all right then," criedthe rosy lady jubilantly. "i can manage james a. if that bird is outof the way." with which cryptic utterance she wentjoyfully on her way and anne flew to the kitchen door to meet marilla."anne, who was that woman?" "marilla," said anne solemnly, but withdancing eyes, "do i look as if i were crazy?""not more so than usual," said marilla, with no thought of being sarcastic. "well then, do you think i am awake?""anne, what nonsense has got into you?
who was that woman, i say?" "marilla, if i'm not crazy and not asleepshe can't be such stuff as dreams are made of...she must be real.anyway, i'm sure i couldn't have imagined such a bonnet. she says she is mr. harrison's wife,marilla." marilla stared in her turn."his wife! anne shirley! then what has he been passing himself offas an unmarried man for?" "i don't suppose he did, really," saidanne, trying to be just.
"he never said he wasn't married. people simply took it for granted.oh marilla, what will mrs. lynde say to this?"they found out what mrs. lynde had to say when she came up that evening. mrs. lynde wasn't surprised!mrs. lynde had always expected something of the sort!mrs. lynde had always known there was something about mr. harrison! "to think of his deserting his wife!" shesaid indignantly. "it's like something you'd read of in thestates, but who would expect such a thing
to happen right here in avonlea?" "but we don't know that he deserted her,"protested anne, determined to believe her friend innocent till he was proved guilty."we don't know the rights of it at all." "well, we soon will. i'm going straight over there," said mrs.lynde, who had never learned that there was such a word as delicacy in the dictionary. "i'm not supposed to know anything abouther arrival, and mr. harrison was to bring some medicine for thomas from carmodytoday, so that will be a good excuse. i'll find out the whole story and come inand tell you on the way back."
mrs. lynde rushed in where anne had fearedto tread. nothing would have induced the latter to goover to the harrison place; but she had her natural and proper share of curiosity andshe felt secretly glad that mrs. lynde was going to solve the mystery. she and marilla waited expectantly for thatgood lady's return, but waited in vain. mrs. lynde did not revisit green gablesthat night. davy, arriving home at nine o'clock fromthe boulter place, explained why. "i met mrs. lynde and some strange woman inthe hollow," he said, "and gracious, how they were talking both at once!
mrs. lynde said to tell you she was sorryit was too late to call tonight. anne, i'm awful hungry.we had tea at milty's at four and i think mrs. boulter is real mean. she didn't give us any preserves or cake...and even the bread was skurce." "davy, when you go visiting you must nevercriticize anything you are given to eat," said anne solemnly. "it is very bad manners.""all right...i'll only think it," said davy cheerfully."do give a fellow some supper, anne." anne looked at marilla, who followed herinto the pantry and shut the door
cautiously. "you can give him some jam on his bread, iknow what tea at levi boulter's is apt to be."davy took his slice of bread and jam with a sigh. "it's a kind of disappointing world afterall," he remarked. "milty has a cat that takes fits...she'stook a fit regular every day for three weeks. milty says it's awful fun to watch her. i went down today on purpose to see herhave one but the mean old thing wouldn't
take a fit and just kept healthy ashealthy, though milty and me hung round all the afternoon and waited. but never mind" ...davy brightened up asthe insidious comfort of the plum jam stole into his soul..."maybe i'll see her in onesometime yet. it doesn't seem likely she'd stop havingthem all at once when she's been so in the habit of it, does it?this jam is awful nice." davy had no sorrows that plum jam could notcure. sunday proved so rainy that there was nostirring abroad; but by monday everybody had heard some version of the harrisonstory.
the school buzzed with it and davy camehome, full of information. "marilla, mr. harrison has a newwife...well, not ezackly new, but they've stopped being married for quite a spell,milty says. i always s'posed people had to keep onbeing married once they'd begun, but milty says no, there's ways of stopping if youcan't agree. milty says one way is just to start off andleave your wife, and that's what mr. harrison did. milty says mr. harrison left his wifebecause she throwed things at him...hard things...and arty sloane says it wasbecause she wouldn't let him smoke, and ned
clay says it was 'cause she never let upscolding him. i wouldn't leave my wife for anything likethat. i'd just put my foot down and say, 'mrs.davy, you've just got to do what'll please me 'cause i'm a man.'that'd settle her pretty quick i guess. but annetta clay says she left him becausehe wouldn't scrape his boots at the door and she doesn't blame her.i'm going right over to mr. harrison's this minute to see what she's like." davy soon returned, somewhat cast down."mrs. harrison was away...she's gone to carmody with mrs. rachel lynde to get newpaper for the parlor.
and mr. harrison said to tell anne to goover and see him 'cause he wants to have a talk with her. and say, the floor is scrubbed, and mr.harrison is shaved, though there wasn't any preaching yesterday."the harrison kitchen wore a very unfamiliar look to anne. the floor was indeed scrubbed to awonderful pitch of purity and so was every article of furniture in the room; the stovewas polished until she could see her face in it; the walls were whitewashed and thewindow panes sparkled in the sunlight. by the table sat mr. harrison in hisworking clothes, which on friday had been
noted for sundry rents and tatters butwhich were now neatly patched and brushed. he was sprucely shaved and what little hairhe had was carefully trimmed. "sit down, anne, sit down," said mr.harrison in a tone but two degrees removed from that which avonlea people used atfunerals. "emily's gone over to carmody with rachellynde...she's struck up a lifelong friendship already with rachel lynde.beats all how contrary women are. well, anne, my easy times are over...allover. it's neatness and tidiness for me for therest of my natural life, i suppose." mr. harrison did his best to speakdolefully, but an irrepressible twinkle in
his eye betrayed him. "mr. harrison, you are glad your wife iscome back," cried anne, shaking her finger at him."you needn't pretend you're not, because i can see it plainly." mr. harrison relaxed into a sheepish smile."well...well...i'm getting used to it," he conceded."i can't say i was sorry to see emily. a man really needs some protection in acommunity like this, where he can't play a game of checkers with a neighbor withoutbeing accused of wanting to marry that neighbor's sister and having it put in thepaper."
"nobody would have supposed you went to seeisabella andrews if you hadn't pretended to be unmarried," said anne severely. "i didn't pretend i was.if anybody'd have asked me if i was married i'd have said i was.but they just took it for granted. i wasn't anxious to talk about thematter...i was feeling too sore over it. it would have been nuts for mrs. rachellynde if she had known my wife had left me, wouldn't it now?" "but some people say that you left her.""she started it, anne, she started it. i'm going to tell you the whole story, fori don't want you to think worse of me than
i deserve...nor of emily neither. but let's go out on the veranda.everything is so fearful neat in here that it kind of makes me homesick.i suppose i'll get used to it after awhile but it eases me up to look at the yard. emily hasn't had time to tidy it up yet."as soon as they were comfortably seated on the veranda mr. harrison began his tale ofwoe. "i lived in scottsford, new brunswick,before i came here, anne. my sister kept house for me and she suitedme fine; she was just reasonably tidy and she let me alone and spoiled me...so emilysays.
but three years ago she died. before she died she worried a lot aboutwhat was to become of me and finally she got me to promise i'd get married. she advised me to take emily scott becauseemily had money of her own and was a pattern housekeeper.i said, says i, 'emily scott wouldn't look at me.' 'you ask her and see,' says my sister; andjust to ease her mind i promised her i would...and i did.and emily said she'd have me. never was so surprised in my life, anne...asmart pretty little woman like her and an
old fellow like me.i tell you i thought at first i was in luck. well, we were married and took a littlewedding trip to st. john for a fortnight and then we went home. we got home at ten o'clock at night, and igive you my word, anne, that in half an hour that woman was at work housecleaning. oh, i know you're thinking my house neededit ...you've got a very expressive face, anne; your thoughts just come out on itlike print...but it didn't, not that bad. it had got pretty mixed up while i waskeeping bachelor's hall, i admit, but i'd
got a woman to come in and clean it upbefore i was married and there'd been considerable painting and fixing done. i tell you if you took emily into a brandnew white marble palace she'd be into the scrubbing as soon as she could get an olddress on. well, she cleaned house till one o'clockthat night and at four she was up and at it again.and she kept on that way...far's i could see she never stopped. it was scour and sweep and dusteverlasting, except on sundays, and then she was just longing for monday to beginagain.
but it was her way of amusing herself and icould have reconciled myself to it if she'd left me alone.but that she wouldn't do. she'd set out to make me over but shehadn't caught me young enough. i wasn't allowed to come into the houseunless i changed my boots for slippers at the door. i darsn't smoke a pipe for my life unless iwent to the barn. and i didn't use good enough grammar.emily'd been a schoolteacher in her early life and she'd never got over it. then she hated to see me eating with myknife.
well, there it was, pick and nageverlasting. but i s'pose, anne, to be fair, i wascantankerous too. i didn't try to improve as i might havedone...i just got cranky and disagreeable when she found fault. i told her one day she hadn't complained ofmy grammar when i proposed to her. it wasn't an overly tactful thing to say. a woman would forgive a man for beating hersooner than for hinting she was too much pleased to get him. well, we bickered along like that and itwasn't exactly pleasant, but we might have
got used to each other after a spell if ithadn't been for ginger. ginger was the rock we split on at last. emily didn't like parrots and she couldn'tstand ginger's profane habits of speech. i was attached to the bird for my brotherthe sailor's sake. my brother the sailor was a pet of minewhen we were little tads and he'd sent ginger to me when he was dying.i didn't see any sense in getting worked up over his swearing. there's nothing i hate worse'n profanity ina human being, but in a parrot, that's just repeating what it's heard with no moreunderstanding of it than i'd have of
chinese, allowances might be made. but emily couldn't see it that way.women ain't logical. she tried to break ginger of swearing butshe hadn't any better success than she had in trying to make me stop saying 'i seen'and 'them things.' seemed as if the more she tried the worseginger got, same as me. "well, things went on like this, both of usgetting raspier, till the climax came. emily invited our minister and his wife totea, and another minister and his wife that was visiting them. i'd promised to put ginger away in somesafe place where nobody would hear
him...emily wouldn't touch his cage with aten-foot pole ... and i meant to do it, for i didn't want the ministers to hearanything unpleasant in my house. but it slipped my mind...emily was worryingme so much about clean collars and grammar that it wasn't any wonder...and i neverthought of that poor parrot till we sat down to tea. just as minister number one was in the verymiddle of saying grace, ginger, who was on the veranda outside the dining room window,lifted up his voice. the gobbler had come into view in the yardand the sight of a gobbler always had an unwholesome effect on ginger.he surpassed himself that time.
you can smile, anne, and i don't deny i'vechuckled some over it since myself, but at the time i felt almost as much mortified asemily. i went out and carried ginger to the barn. i can't say i enjoyed the meal.i knew by the look of emily that there was trouble brewing for ginger and james a. when the folks went away i started for thecow pasture and on the way i did some thinking. i felt sorry for emily and kind of fanciedi hadn't been so thoughtful of her as i might; and besides, i wondered if theministers would think that ginger had
learned his vocabulary from me. the long and short of it was, i decidedthat ginger would have to be mercifully disposed of and when i'd druv the cows homei went in to tell emily so. but there was no emily and there was aletter on the table...just according to the rule in story books. emily writ that i'd have to choose betweenher and ginger; she'd gone back to her own house and there she would stay till i wentand told her i'd got rid of that parrot. "i was all riled up, anne, and i said shemight stay till doomsday if she waited for that; and i stuck to it.i packed up her belongings and sent them
after her. it made an awful lot of talk ...scottsfordwas pretty near as bad as avonlea for gossip...and everybody sympathized withemily. it kept me all cross and cantankerous and isaw i'd have to get out or i'd never have any peace.i concluded i'd come to the island. i'd been here when i was a boy and i likedit; but emily had always said she wouldn't live in a place where folks were scared towalk out after dark for fear they'd fall off the edge. so, just to be contrary, i moved over here.and that's all there is to it.
i hadn't ever heard a word from or aboutemily till i come home from the back field saturday and found her scrubbing the floorbut with the first decent dinner i'd had since she left me all ready on the table. she told me to eat it first and then we'dtalk...by which i concluded that emily had learned some lessons about getting alongwith a man. so she's here and she's going tostay...seeing that ginger's dead and the island's some bigger than she thought.there's mrs. lynde and her now. no, don't go, anne. stay and get acquainted with emily.she took quite a notion to you saturday
...wanted to know who that handsomeredhaired girl was at the next house." mrs. harrison welcomed anne radiantly andinsisted on her staying to tea. "james a. has been telling me all about youand how kind you've been, making cakes and things for him," she said. "i want to get acquainted with all my newneighbors just as soon as possible. mrs. lynde is a lovely woman, isn't she?so friendly." when anne went home in the sweet june dusk,mrs. harrison went with her across the fields where the fireflies were lightingtheir starry lamps. "i suppose," said mrs. harrisonconfidentially, "that james a. has told you
our story?""yes." "then i needn't tell it, for james a. is ajust man and he would tell the truth. the blame was far from being all on hisside. i can see that now. i wasn't back in my own house an hourbefore i wished i hadn't been so hasty but i wouldn't give in.i see now that i expected too much of a man. and i was real foolish to mind his badgrammar. it doesn't matter if a man does use badgrammar so long as he is a good provider
and doesn't go poking round the pantry tosee how much sugar you've used in a week. i feel that james a. and i are going to bereal happy now. i wish i knew who 'observer' is, so that icould thank him. i owe him a real debt of gratitude." anne kept her own counsel and mrs. harrisonnever knew that her gratitude found its way to its object. anne felt rather bewildered over the far-reaching consequences of those foolish "notes."they had reconciled a man to his wife and made the reputation of a prophet.
mrs. lynde was in the green gables kitchen.she had been telling the whole story to marilla."well, and how do you like mrs. harrison?" she asked anne. "very much.i think she's a real nice little woman." "that's exactly what she is," said mrs.rachel with emphasis, "and as i've just been sayin' to marilla, i think we oughtall to overlook mr. harrison's peculiarities for her sake and try to makeher feel at home here, that's what. well, i must get back.thomas'll be wearying for me. i get out a little since eliza came andhe's seemed a lot better these past few
days, but i never like to be long away fromhim. i hear gilbert blythe has resigned fromwhite sands. he'll be off to college in the fall, isuppose." mrs. rachel looked sharply at anne, butanne was bending over a sleepy davy nodding on the sofa and nothing was to be read inher face. she carried davy away, her oval girlishcheek pressed against his curly yellow head. as they went up the stairs davy flung atired arm about anne's neck and gave her a warm hug and a sticky kiss."you're awful nice, anne.
milty boulter wrote on his slate today andshowed it to jennie sloane, "'roses red and vi'lets blue, sugar's sweet, and so are you" andthat 'spresses my feelings for you ezackly, anne." chapter xxviaround the bend thomas lynde faded out of life as quietlyand unobtrusively as he had lived it. his wife was a tender, patient, unweariednurse. sometimes rachel had been a little hard onher thomas in health, when his slowness or meekness had provoked her; but when hebecame ill no voice could be lower, no hand
more gently skillful, no vigil moreuncomplaining. "you've been a good wife to me, rachel," heonce said simply, when she was sitting by him in the dusk, holding his thin, blanchedold hand in her work-hardened one. "a good wife. i'm sorry i ain't leaving you better off;but the children will look after you. they're all smart, capable children, justlike their mother. a good mother...a good woman...." he had fallen asleep then, and the nextmorning, just as the white dawn was creeping up over the pointed firs in thehollow, marilla went softly into the east
gable and wakened anne. "anne, thomas lynde is gone...their hiredboy just brought the word. i'm going right down to rachel." on the day after thomas lynde's funeralmarilla went about green gables with a strangely preoccupied air. occasionally she looked at anne, seemed onthe point of saying something, then shook her head and buttoned up her mouth. after tea she went down to see mrs. rachel;and when she returned she went to the east gable, where anne was correcting schoolexercises.
"how is mrs. lynde tonight?" asked thelatter. "she's feeling calmer and more composed,"answered marilla, sitting down on anne's bed...a proceeding which betokened someunusual mental excitement, for in marilla's code of household ethics to sit on a bed after it was made up was an unpardonableoffense. "but she's very lonely. eliza had to go home today...her son isn'twell and she felt she couldn't stay any longer." "when i've finished these exercises i'llrun down and chat awhile with mrs. lynde,"
said anne."i had intended to study some latin composition tonight but it can wait." "i suppose gilbert blythe is going tocollege in the fall," said marilla jerkily. "how would you like to go too, anne?"anne looked up in astonishment. "i would like it, of course, marilla. but it isn't possible.""i guess it can be made possible. i've always felt that you should go.i've never felt easy to think you were giving it all up on my account." "but marilla, i've never been sorry for amoment that i stayed home.
i've been so happy...oh, these past twoyears have just been delightful." "oh, yes, i know you've been contentedenough. but that isn't the question exactly.you ought to go on with your education. you've saved enough to put you through oneyear at redmond and the money the stock brought in will do for another year...andthere's scholarships and things you might win." "yes, but i can't go, marilla.your eyes are better, of course; but i can't leave you alone with the twins.they need so much looking after." "i won't be alone with them.
that's what i meant to discuss with you.i had a long talk with rachel tonight. anne, she's feeling dreadful bad over agood many things. she's not left very well off. it seems they mortgaged the farm eightyears ago to give the youngest boy a start when he went west; and they've never beenable to pay much more than the interest since. and then of course thomas' illness has costa good deal, one way or another. the farm will have to be sold and rachelthinks there'll be hardly anything left after the bills are settled.
she says she'll have to go and live witheliza and it's breaking her heart to think of leaving avonlea.a woman of her age doesn't make new friends and interests easy. and, anne, as she talked about it thethought came to me that i would ask her to come and live with me, but i thought iought to talk it over with you first before i said anything to her. if i had rachel living with me you could goto college. how do you feel about it?" "i feel...as if...somebody...had handedme...the moon ...and i didn't
know...exactly...what to do...with it,"said anne dazedly. "but as for asking mrs. lynde to come here,that is for you to decide, marilla. do you think...are you sure...you wouldlike it? mrs. lynde is a good woman and a kindneighbor, but ...but ..." "but she's got her faults, you mean to say? well, she has, of course; but i think i'drather put up with far worse faults than see rachel go away from avonlea.i'd miss her terrible. she's the only close friend i've got hereand i'd be lost without her. we've been neighbors for forty-five yearsand we've never had a quarrel...though we
came rather near it that time you flew atmrs. rachel for calling you homely and redhaired. do you remember, anne?""i should think i do," said anne ruefully. "people don't forget things like that.how i hated poor mrs. rachel at that moment!" "and then that 'apology' you made her.well, you were a handful, in all conscience, anne.i did feel so puzzled and bewildered how to manage you. matthew understood you better.""matthew understood everything," said anne
softly, as she always spoke of him."well, i think it could be managed so that rachel and i wouldn't clash at all. it always seemed to me that the reason twowomen can't get along in one house is that they try to share the same kitchen and getin each other's way. now, if rachel came here, she could havethe north gable for her bedroom and the spare room for a kitchen as well as not,for we don't really need a spare room at all. she could put her stove there and whatfurniture she wanted to keep, and be real comfortable and independent.
she'll have enough to live on ofcourse...her children'll see to that...so all i'd be giving her would be house room.yes, anne, far as i'm concerned i'd like it." "then ask her," said anne promptly."i'd be very sorry myself to see mrs. rachel go away.""and if she comes," continued marilla, "you can go to college as well as not. she'll be company for me and she'll do forthe twins what i can't do, so there's no reason in the world why you shouldn't go."anne had a long meditation at her window that night.
joy and regret struggled together in herheart. she had come at last...suddenly andunexpectedly...to the bend in the road; and college was around it, with a hundredrainbow hopes and visions; but anne realized as well that when she rounded that curve she must leave many sweet thingsbehind...all the little simple duties and interests which had grown so dear to her inthe last two years and which she had glorified into beauty and delight by theenthusiasm she had put into them. she must give up her school... and sheloved every one of her pupils, even the stupid and naughty ones.
the mere thought of paul irving made herwonder if redmond were such a name to conjure with after all. "i've put out a lot of little roots thesetwo years," anne told the moon, "and when i'm pulled up they're going to hurt a greatdeal. but it's best to go, i think, and, asmarilla says, there's no good reason why i shouldn't.i must get out all my ambitions and dust anne sent in her resignation the next day;and mrs. rachel, after a heart to heart talk with marilla, gratefully accepted theoffer of a home at green gables. she elected to remain in her own house forthe summer, however; the farm was not to be
sold until the fall and there were manyarrangements to be made. "i certainly never thought of living as faroff the road as green gables," sighed mrs. rachel to herself. "but really, green gables doesn't seem asout of the world as it used to do...anne has lots of company and the twins make itreal lively. and anyhow, i'd rather live at the bottomof a well than leave avonlea." these two decisions being noised abroadspeedily ousted the arrival of mrs. harrison in popular gossip. sage heads were shaken over marillacuthbert's rash step in asking mrs. rachel
to live with her.people opined that they wouldn't get on together. they were both "too fond of their own way,"and many doleful predictions were made, none of which disturbed the parties inquestion at all. they had come to a clear and distinctunderstanding of the respective duties and rights of their new arrangements and meantto abide by them. "i won't meddle with you nor you with me,"mrs. rachel had said decidedly, "and as for the twins, i'll be glad to do all i can forthem; but i won't undertake to answer davy's questions, that's what.
i'm not an encyclopedia, neither am i aphiladelphia lawyer. you'll miss anne for that." "sometimes anne's answers were about asqueer as davy's questions," said marilla drily. "the twins will miss her and no mistake;but her future can't be sacrificed to davy's thirst for information. when he asks questions i can't answer i'lljust tell him children should be seen and not heard. that was how i was brought up, and i don'tknow but what it was just as good a way as
all these new-fangled notions for trainingchildren." "well, anne's methods seem to have workedfairly well with davy," said mrs. lynde smilingly."he is a reformed character, that's what." "he isn't a bad little soul," concededmarilla. "i never expected to get as fond of thosechildren as i have. davy gets round you somehow ...and dora isa lovely child, although she is...kind of ...well, kind of ...""monotonous? exactly," supplied mrs. rachel. "like a book where every page is the same,that's what.
dora will make a good, reliable woman butshe'll never set the pond on fire. well, that sort of folks are comfortable tohave round, even if they're not as interesting as the other kind." gilbert blythe was probably the only personto whom the news of anne's resignation brought unmixed pleasure.her pupils looked upon it as a sheer catastrophe. annetta bell had hysterics when she wenthome. anthony pye fought two pitched andunprovoked battles with other boys by way of relieving his feelings.
barbara shaw cried all night.paul irving defiantly told his grandmother that she needn't expect him to eat anyporridge for a week. "i can't do it, grandma," he said. "i don't really know if i can eat anything.i feel as if there was a dreadful lump in my throat.i'd have cried coming home from school if jake donnell hadn't been watching me. i believe i will cry after i go to bed.it wouldn't show on my eyes tomorrow, would it?and it would be such a relief. but anyway, i can't eat porridge.
i'm going to need all my strength of mindto bear up against this, grandma, and i won't have any left to grapple withporridge. oh grandma, i don't know what i'll do whenmy beautiful teacher goes away. milty boulter says he bets jane andrewswill get the school. i suppose miss andrews is very nice. but i know she won't understand things likemiss shirley." diana also took a very pessimistic view ofaffairs. "it will be horribly lonesome here nextwinter," she mourned, one twilight when the moonlight was raining "airy silver" throughthe cherry boughs and filling the east
gable with a soft, dream-like radiance in which the two girls sat and talked, anne onher low rocker by the window, diana sitting turkfashion on the bed."you and gilbert will be gone ...and the allans too. they are going to call mr. allan tocharlottetown and of course he'll accept. it's too mean. we'll be vacant all winter, i suppose, andhave to listen to a long string of candidates...and half of them won't be anygood." "i hope they won't call mr. baxter fromeast grafton here, anyhow," said anne
decidedly."he wants the call but he does preach such gloomy sermons. mr. bell says he's a minister of the oldschool, but mrs. lynde says there's nothing whatever the matter with him butindigestion. his wife isn't a very good cook, it seems,and mrs. lynde says that when a man has to eat sour bread two weeks out of three histheology is bound to get a kink in it somewhere. mrs. allan feels very badly about goingaway. she says everybody has been so kind to hersince she came here as a bride that she
feels as if she were leaving lifelongfriends. and then, there's the baby's grave, youknow. she says she doesn't see how she can goaway and leave that...it was such a little mite of a thing and only three months old,and she says she is afraid it will miss its mother, although she knows better andwouldn't say so to mr. allan for anything. she says she has slipped through the birchgrove back of the manse nearly every night to the graveyard and sung a little lullabyto it. she told me all about it last evening wheni was up putting some of those early wild roses on matthew's grave.
i promised her that as long as i was inavonlea i would put flowers on the baby's grave and when i was away i felt sure that..." "that i would do it," supplied dianaheartily. "of course i will.and i'll put them on matthew's grave too, for your sake, anne." "oh, thank you.i meant to ask you to if you would. and on little hester gray's too?please don't forget hers. do you know, i've thought and dreamed somuch about little hester gray that she has become strangely real to me.
i think of her, back there in her littlegarden in that cool, still, green corner; and i have a fancy that if i could stealback there some spring evening, just at the magic time 'twixt light and dark, and tiptoe so softly up the beech hill that myfootsteps could not frighten her, i would find the garden just as it used to be, allsweet with june lilies and early roses, with the tiny house beyond it all hung with vines; and little hester gray would bethere, with her soft eyes, and the wind ruffling her dark hair, wandering about,putting her fingertips under the chins of the lilies and whispering secrets with the
roses; and i would go forward, oh, sosoftly, and hold out my hands and say to her, 'little hester gray, won't you let mebe your playmate, for i love the roses too?' and we would sit down on the old bench andtalk a little and dream a little, or just be beautifully silent together. and then the moon would rise and i wouldlook around me ...and there would be no hester gray and no little vine-hung house,and no roses...only an old waste garden starred with june lilies amid the grasses, and the wind sighing, oh, so sorrowfully inthe cherry trees.
and i would not know whether it had beenreal or if i had just imagined it all." diana crawled up and got her back againstthe headboard of the bed. when your companion of twilight hour saidsuch spooky things it was just as well not to be able to fancy there was anythingbehind you. "i'm afraid the improvement society will godown when you and gilbert are both gone," she remarked dolefully. "not a bit of fear of it," said annebriskly, coming back from dreamland to the affairs of practical life. "it is too firmly established for that,especially since the older people are
becoming so enthusiastic about it.look what they are doing this summer for their lawns and lanes. besides, i'll be watching for hints atredmond and i'll write a paper for it next winter and send it over.don't take such a gloomy view of things, diana. and don't grudge me my little hour ofgladness and jubilation now. later on, when i have to go away, i'll feelanything but glad." "it's all right for you to be glad...you'regoing to college and you'll have a jolly time and make heaps of lovely new friends.""i hope i shall make new friends," said
anne thoughtfully. "the possibilities of making new friendshelp to make life very fascinating. but no matter how many friends i makethey'll never be as dear to me as the old ones...especially a certain girl with blackeyes and dimples. can you guess who she is, diana?" "but there'll be so many clever girls atredmond," sighed diana, "and i'm only a stupid little country girl who says 'iseen' sometimes...though i really know better when i stop to think. well, of course these past two years havereally been too pleasant to last.
i know somebody who is glad you are goingto redmond anyhow. anne, i'm going to ask you a question...aserious question. don't be vexed and do answer seriously.do you care anything for gilbert?" "ever so much as a friend and not a bit inthe way you mean," said anne calmly and decidedly; she also thought she wasspeaking sincerely. diana sighed. she wished, somehow, that anne had answereddifferently. "don't you mean ever to be married, anne?" "perhaps...some day...when i meet the rightone," said anne, smiling dreamily up at the
moonlight."but how can you be sure when you do meet the right one?" persisted diana. "oh, i should know him...something wouldtell me. you know what my ideal is, diana.""but people's ideals change sometimes." "mine won't. and i couldn't care for any man who didn'tfulfill it." "what if you never meet him?""then i shall die an old maid," was the cheerful response. "i daresay it isn't the hardest death byany means."
"oh, i suppose the dying would be easyenough; it's the living an old maid i shouldn't like," said diana, with nointention of being humorous. "although i wouldn't mind being an old maidvery much if i could be one like miss lavendar.but i never could be. when i'm forty-five i'll be horribly fat. and while there might be some romance abouta thin old maid there couldn't possibly be any about a fat one.oh, mind you, nelson atkins proposed to ruby gillis three weeks ago. ruby told me all about it.
she says she never had any intention oftaking him, because any one who married him will have to go in with the old folks; butruby says that he made such a perfectly beautiful and romantic proposal that itsimply swept her off her feet. but she didn't want to do anything rash soshe asked for a week to consider; and two days later she was at a meeting of thesewing circle at his mother's and there was a book called 'the complete guide toetiquette,' lying on the parlor table. ruby said she simply couldn't describe herfeelings when in a section of it headed, 'the deportment of courtship and marriage,'she found the very proposal nelson had made, word for word.
she went home and wrote him a perfectlyscathing refusal; and she says his father and mother have taken turns watching himever since for fear he'll drown himself in the river; but ruby says they needn't be afraid; for in the deportment of courtshipand marriage it told how a rejected lover should behave and there's nothing aboutdrowning in that. and she says wilbur blair is literallypining away for her but she's perfectly helpless in the matter."anne made an impatient movement. "i hate to say it...it seems sodisloyal...but, well, i don't like ruby gillis now.
i liked her when we went to school andqueen's together...though not so well as you and jane of course.but this last year at carmody she seems so different...so...so ..." "i know," nodded diana."it's the gillis coming out in her... she can't help it. mrs. lynde says that if ever a gillis girlthought about anything but the boys she never showed it in her walk andconversation. she talks about nothing but boys and whatcompliments they pay her, and how crazy they all are about her at carmody.and the strange thing is, they are, too
..." diana admitted this somewhat resentfully."last night when i saw her in mr. blair's store she whispered to me that she'd justmade a new 'mash.' i wouldn't ask her who it was, because iknew she was dying to be asked. well, it's what ruby always wanted, isuppose. you remember even when she was little shealways said she meant to have dozens of beaus when she grew up and have the verygayest time she could before she settled down. she's so different from jane, isn't she?jane is such a nice, sensible, lady-like
girl." "dear old jane is a jewel," agreed anne,"but," she added, leaning forward to bestow a tender pat on the plump, dimpled littlehand hanging over her pillow, "there's nobody like my own diana after all. do you remember that evening we first met,diana, and 'swore' eternal friendship in your garden?we've kept that 'oath,' i think...we've never had a quarrel nor even a coolness. i shall never forget the thrill that wentover me the day you told me you loved me. i had had such a lonely, starved heart allthrough my childhood.
i'm just beginning to realize how starvedand lonely it really was. nobody cared anything for me or wanted tobe bothered with me. i should have been miserable if it hadn'tbeen for that strange little dream-life of mine, wherein i imagined all the friendsand love i craved. but when i came to green gables everythingwas changed. and then i met you.you don't know what your friendship meant to me. i want to thank you here and now, dear, forthe warm and true affection you've always given me.""and always, always will," sobbed diana.
"i shall never love anybody ...anygirl...half as well as i love you. and if i ever do marry and have a littlegirl of my own i'm going to name her anne." chapter xxviian afternoon at the stone house "where are you going, all dressed up,anne?" davy wanted to know."you look bully in that dress." anne had come down to dinner in a new dressof pale green muslin ...the first color she had worn since matthew's death. it became her perfectly, bringing out allthe delicate, flower-like tints of her face and the gloss and burnish of her hair."davy, how many times have i told you that
you mustn't use that word," she rebuked. "i'm going to echo lodge.""take me with you," entreated davy. "i would if i were driving.but i'm going to walk and it's too far for your eight-year-old legs. besides, paul is going with me and i fearyou don't enjoy yourself in his company." "oh, i like paul lots better'n i did," saiddavy, beginning to make fearful inroads into his pudding. "since i've got pretty good myself i don'tmind his being gooder so much. if i can keep on i'll catch up with himsome day, both in legs and goodness.
'sides, paul's real nice to us secondprimer boys in school. he won't let the other big boys meddle withus and he shows us lots of games." "how came paul to fall into the brook atnoon hour yesterday?" asked anne. "i met him on the playground, such adripping figure that i sent him promptly home for clothes without waiting to findout what had happened." "well, it was partly a zacksident,"explained davy. "he stuck his head in on purpose but therest of him fell in zacksidentally. we was all down at the brook and prillierogerson got mad at paul about something ...she's awful mean and horrid anyway, ifshe is pretty...and said that his
grandmother put his hair up in curl ragsevery night. paul wouldn't have minded what she said, iguess, but gracie andrews laughed, and paul got awful red, 'cause gracie's his girl,you know. he's clean gone on her...brings her flowersand carries her books as far as the shore road. he got as red as a beet and said hisgrandmother didn't do any such thing and his hair was born curly. and then he laid down on the bank and stuckhis head right into the spring to show oh, it wasn't the spring we drink out of..." seeing a horrified look on marilla's
face..."it was the little one lower down.but the bank's awful slippy and paul went right in. i tell you he made a bully splash.oh, anne, anne, i didn't mean to say that...it just slipped out before ithought. he made a splendid splash. but he looked so funny when he crawled out,all wet and muddy. the girls laughed more'n ever, but graciedidn't laugh. she looked sorry. gracie's a nice girl but she's got a snubnose.
when i get big enough to have a girl iwon't have one with a snub nose...i'll pick one with a pretty nose like yours, anne." "a boy who makes such a mess of syrup allover his face when he is eating his pudding will never get a girl to look at him," saidmarilla severely. "but i'll wash my face before i gocourting," protested davy, trying to improve matters by rubbing the back of hishand over the smears. "and i'll wash behind my ears too, withoutbeing told. i remembered to this morning, marilla.i don't forget half as often as i did. but ..." and davy sighed..."there's so manycorners about a fellow that it's awful hard
to remember them all.well, if i can't go to miss lavendar's i'll go over and see mrs. harrison. mrs. harrison's an awful nice woman, i tellyou. she keeps a jar of cookies in her pantry a-purpose for little boys, and she always gives me the scrapings out of a pan she'smixed up a plum cake in. a good many plums stick to the sides, yousee. mr. harrison was always a nice man, buthe's twice as nice since he got married over again. i guess getting married makes folks nicer.why don't you get married, marilla?
marilla's state of single blessedness hadnever been a sore point with her, so she answered amiably, with an exchange ofsignificant looks with anne, that she supposed it was because nobody would haveher. "but maybe you never asked anybody to haveyou," protested davy. "oh, davy," said dora primly, shocked intospeaking without being spoken to, "it's the men that have to do the asking.""i don't know why they have to do it always," grumbled davy. "seems to me everything's put on the men inthis world. can i have some more pudding, marilla?"
"you've had as much as was good for you,"said marilla; but she gave him a moderate second helping."i wish people could live on pudding. why can't they, marilla? i want to know.""because they'd soon get tired of it." "i'd like to try that for myself," saidskeptical davy. "but i guess it's better to have puddingonly on fish and company days than none at all.they never have any at milty boulter's. milty says when company comes his mothergives them cheese and cuts it herself...one little bit apiece and one over formanners."
"if milty boulter talks like that about hismother at least you needn't repeat it," said marilla severely. "bless my soul,"...davy had picked thisexpression up from mr. harrison and used it with great gusto..."milty meant it as acompelment. he's awful proud of his mother, cause folkssay she could scratch a living on a rock." "i...i suppose them pesky hens are in mypansy bed again," said marilla, rising and going out hurriedly. the slandered hens were nowhere near thepansy bed and marilla did not even glance at it.
instead, she sat down on the cellar hatchand laughed until she was ashamed of herself. when anne and paul reached the stone housethat afternoon they found miss lavendar and charlotta the fourth in the garden,weeding, raking, clipping, and trimming as if for dear life. miss lavendar herself, all gay and sweet inthe frills and laces she loved, dropped her shears and ran joyously to meet her guests,while charlotta the fourth grinned cheerfully. "welcome, anne.i thought you'd come today.
you belong to the afternoon so it broughtyou. things that belong together are sure tocome together. what a lot of trouble that would save somepeople if they only knew it. but they don't...and so they wastebeautiful energy moving heaven and earth to bring things together that don't belong.and you, paul...why, you've grown! you're half a head taller than when youwere here before." "yes, i've begun to grow like pigweed inthe night, as mrs. lynde says," said paul, in frank delight over the fact. "grandma says it's the porridge takingeffect at last.
perhaps it is.goodness knows ..." paul sighed deeply..."i've eaten enough tomake anyone grow. i do hope, now that i've begun, i'll keepon till i'm as tall as father. he is six feet, you know, miss lavendar." yes, miss lavendar did know; the flush onher pretty cheeks deepened a little; she took paul's hand on one side and anne's onthe other and walked to the house in silence. "is it a good day for the echoes, misslavendar?" queried paul anxiously. the day of his first visit had been toowindy for echoes and paul had been much
disappointed. "yes, just the best kind of a day,"answered miss lavendar, rousing herself from her reverie."but first we are all going to have something to eat. i know you two folks didn't walk all theway back here through those beechwoods without getting hungry, and charlotta thefourth and i can eat any hour of the day...we have such obliging appetites. so we'll just make a raid on the pantry.fortunately it's lovely and full. i had a presentiment that i was going tohave company today and charlotta the fourth
and i prepared." "i think you are one of the people whoalways have nice things in their pantry," declared paul."grandma's like that too. but she doesn't approve of snacks betweenmeals. i wonder," he added meditatively, "if iought to eat them away from home when i know she doesn't approve." "oh, i don't think she would disapproveafter you have had a long walk. that makes a difference," said misslavendar, exchanging amused glances with anne over paul's brown curls.
"i suppose that snacks are extremelyunwholesome. that is why we have them so often at echolodge. we... charlotta the fourth and i...live indefiance of every known law of diet. we eat all sorts of indigestible thingswhenever we happen to think of it, by day or night; and we flourish like green baytrees. we are always intending to reform. when we read any article in a paper warningus against something we like we cut it out and pin it up on the kitchen wall so thatwe'll remember it.
but we never can somehow ...until afterwe've gone and eaten that very thing. nothing has ever killed us yet; butcharlotta the fourth has been known to have bad dreams after we had eaten doughnuts andmince pie and fruit cake before we went to bed." "grandma lets me have a glass of milk and aslice of bread and butter before i go to bed; and on sunday nights she puts jam onthe bread," said paul. "so i'm always glad when it's sundaynight... for more reasons than one. sunday is a very long day on the shoreroad. grandma says it's all too short for her andthat father never found sundays tiresome
when he was a little boy. it wouldn't seem so long if i could talk tomy rock people but i never do that because grandma doesn't approve of it on sundays.i think a good deal; but i'm afraid my thoughts are worldly. grandma says we should never think anythingbut religious thoughts on sundays. but teacher here said once that everyreally beautiful thought was religious, no matter what it was about, or what day wethought it on. but i feel sure grandma thinks that sermonsand sunday school lessons are the only things you can think truly religiousthoughts about.
and when it comes to a difference ofopinion between grandma and teacher i don't know what to do.in my heart" ... paul laid his hand on his breast and raisedvery serious blue eyes to miss lavendar's immediately sympathetic face..."i agreewith teacher. but then, you see, grandma has broughtfather up her way and made a brilliant success of him; and teacher has neverbrought anybody up yet, though she's helping with davy and dora. but you can't tell how they'll turn outtill they are grown up. so sometimes i feel as if it might be saferto go by grandma's opinions."
"i think it would," agreed anne solemnly. "anyway, i daresay that if your grandma andi both got down to what we really do mean, under our different ways of expressing it,we'd find out we both meant much the same thing. you'd better go by her way of expressingit, since it's been the result of experience. we'll have to wait until we see how thetwins do turn out before we can be sure that my way is equally good." after lunch they went back to the garden,where paul made the acquaintance of the
echoes, to his wonder and delight, whileanne and miss lavendar sat on the stone bench under the poplar and talked. "so you are going away in the fall?" saidmiss lavendar wistfully. "i ought to be glad for your sake,anne...but i'm horribly, selfishly sorry. i shall miss you so much. oh, sometimes, i think it is of no use tomake friends. they only go out of your life after awhileand leave a hurt that is worse than the emptiness before they came." "that sounds like something miss elizaandrews might say but never miss lavendar,"
said anne."nothing is worse than emptiness...and i'm not going out of your life. there are such things as letters andvacations. dearest, i'm afraid you're looking a littlepale and tired." "oh...hoo...hoo...hoo," went paul on thedyke, where he had been making noises diligently...not all of them melodious inthe making, but all coming back transmuted into the very gold and silver of sound bythe fairy alchemists over the river. miss lavendar made an impatient movementwith her pretty hands. "i'm just tired of everything...even of theechoes.
there is nothing in my life butechoes...echoes of lost hopes and dreams and joys. they're beautiful and mocking.oh anne, it's horrid of me to talk like this when i have company.it's just that i'm getting old and it doesn't agree with me. i know i'll be fearfully cranky by the timei'm sixty. but perhaps all i need is a course of bluepills." at this moment charlotta the fourth, whohad disappeared after lunch, returned, and announced that the northeast corner of mr.john kimball's pasture was red with early
strawberries, and wouldn't miss shirleylike to go and pick some. "early strawberries for tea!" exclaimedmiss lavendar. "oh, i'm not so old as i thought...and idon't need a single blue pill! girls, when you come back with yourstrawberries we'll have tea out here under the silver poplar. i'll have it all ready for you with home-grown cream." anne and charlotta the fourth accordinglybetook themselves back to mr. kimball's pasture, a green remote place where the airwas as soft as velvet and fragrant as a bed of violets and golden as amber.
"oh, isn't it sweet and fresh back here?"breathed anne. "i just feel as if i were drinking in thesunshine." "yes, ma'am, so do i. that's just exactly how i feel too, ma'am,"agreed charlotta the fourth, who would have said precisely the same thing if anne hadremarked that she felt like a pelican of the wilderness. always after anne had visited echo lodgecharlotta the fourth mounted to her little room over the kitchen and tried before herlooking glass to speak and look and move like anne.
charlotta could never flatter herself thatshe quite succeeded; but practice makes perfect, as charlotta had learned atschool, and she fondly hoped that in time she might catch the trick of that dainty uplift of chin, that quick, starryoutflashing of eyes, that fashion of walking as if you were a bough swaying inthe wind. it seemed so easy when you watched anne. charlotta the fourth admired annewholeheartedly. it was not that she thought her so veryhandsome. diana barry's beauty of crimson cheek andblack curls was much more to charlotta the
fourth's taste than anne's moonshine charmof luminous gray eyes and the pale, everchanging roses of her cheeks. "but i'd rather look like you than bepretty," she told anne sincerely. anne laughed, sipped the honey from thetribute, and cast away the sting. she was used to taking her complimentsmixed. public opinion never agreed on anne'slooks. people who had heard her called handsomemet her and were disappointed. people who had heard her called plain sawher and wondered where other people's eyes were.
anne herself would never believe that shehad any claim to beauty. when she looked in the glass all she sawwas a little pale face with seven freckles on the nose thereof. her mirror never revealed to her theelusive, ever-varying play of feeling that came and went over her features like a rosyilluminating flame, or the charm of dream and laughter alternating in her big eyes. while anne was not beautiful in anystrictly defined sense of the word she possessed a certain evasive charm anddistinction of appearance that left beholders with a pleasurable sense of
satisfaction in that softly roundedgirlhood of hers, with all its strongly felt potentialities. those who knew anne best felt, withoutrealizing that they felt it, that her greatest attraction was the aura ofpossibility surrounding her...the power of future development that was in her. she seemed to walk in an atmosphere ofthings about to happen. as they picked, charlotta the fourthconfided to anne her fears regarding miss lavendar. the warm-hearted little handmaiden washonestly worried over her adored mistress'
condition."miss lavendar isn't well, miss shirley, ma'am. i'm sure she isn't, though she nevercomplains. she hasn't seemed like herself this longwhile, ma'am...not since that day you and paul were here together before. i feel sure she caught cold that night,ma'am. after you and him had gone she went out andwalked in the garden for long after dark with nothing but a little shawl on her. there was a lot of snow on the walks and ifeel sure she got a chill, ma'am.
ever since then i've noticed her actingtired and lonesome like. she don't seem to take an interest inanything, ma'am. she never pretends company's coming, norfixes up for it, nor nothing, ma'am. it's only when you come she seems to chirkup a bit. and the worst sign of all, miss shirley,ma'am ..." charlotta the fourth lowered her voice asif she were about to tell some exceedingly weird and awful symptom indeed..."is thatshe never gets cross now when i breaks why, miss shirley, ma'am, yesterday i brukher green and yaller bowl that's always stood on the bookcase.her grandmother brought it out from england
and miss lavendar was awful choice of it. i was dusting it just as careful, missshirley, ma'am, and it slipped out, so fashion, afore i could grab holt of it, andbruk into about forty millyun pieces. i tell you i was sorry and scared. i thought miss lavendar would scold meawful, ma'am; and i'd ruther she had than take it the way she did.she just come in and hardly looked at it and said, 'it's no matter, charlotta. take up the pieces and throw them away.'just like that, miss shirley, ma'am...'take up the pieces and throw them away,' as ifit wasn't her grandmother's bowl from
england. oh, she isn't well and i feel awful badabout it. she's got nobody to look after her but me."charlotta the fourth's eyes brimmed up with tears. anne patted the little brown paw holdingthe cracked pink cup sympathetically. "i think miss lavendar needs a change,charlotta. she stays here alone too much. can't we induce her to go away for a littletrip?" charlotta shook her head, with its rampantbows, disconsolately.
"i don't think so, miss shirley, ma'am. miss lavendar hates visiting.she's only got three relations she ever visits and she says she just goes to seethem as a family duty. last time when she come home she said shewasn't going to visit for family duty no more. 'i've come home in love with loneliness,charlotta,' she says to me, 'and i never want to stray from my own vine and fig treeagain. my relations try so hard to make an oldlady of me and it has a bad effect on me.' just like that, miss shirley, ma'am.'it has a very bad effect on me.'
so i don't think it would do any good tocoax her to go visiting." "we must see what can be done," said annedecidedly, as she put the last possible berry in her pink cup. "just as soon as i have my vacation i'llcome through and spend a whole week with you. we'll have a picnic every day and pretendall sorts of interesting things, and see if we can't cheer miss lavendar up." "that will be the very thing, miss shirley,ma'am," exclaimed charlotta the fourth in rapture.she was glad for miss lavendar's sake and
for her own too. with a whole week in which to study anneconstantly she would surely be able to learn how to move and behave like her. when the girls got back to echo lodge theyfound that miss lavendar and paul had carried the little square table out of thekitchen to the garden and had everything ready for tea. nothing ever tasted so delicious as thosestrawberries and cream, eaten under a great blue sky all curdled over with fluffylittle white clouds, and in the long shadows of the wood with its lispings andits murmurings.
after tea anne helped charlotta wash thedishes in the kitchen, while miss lavendar sat on the stone bench with paul and heardall about his rock people. she was a good listener, this sweet misslavendar, but just at the last it struck paul that she had suddenly lost interest inthe twin sailors. "miss lavendar, why do you look at me likethat?" he asked gravely. "how do i look, paul?" "just as if you were looking through me atsomebody i put you in mind of," said paul, who had such occasional flashes of uncannyinsight that it wasn't quite safe to have secrets when he was about.
"you do put me in mind of somebody i knewlong ago," said miss lavendar dreamily. "when you were young?""yes, when i was young. do i seem very old to you, paul?" "do you know, i can't make up my mind aboutthat," said paul confidentially. "your hair looks old...i never knew a youngperson with white hair. but your eyes are as young as my beautifulteacher's when you laugh. i tell you what, miss lavendar"... paul's voice and face were as solemn as ajudge's..."i think you would make a splendid mother.
you have just the right look in youreyes... the look my little mother always had.i think it's a pity you haven't any boys of your own." "i have a little dream boy, paul.""oh, have you really? how old is he?""about your age i think. he ought to be older because i dreamed himlong before you were born. but i'll never let him get any older thaneleven or twelve; because if i did some day he might grow up altogether and then i'dlose him." "i know," nodded paul.
"that's the beauty of dream-people...theystay any age you want them. you and my beautiful teacher and me myselfare the only folks in the world that i know of that have dream-people. isn't it funny and nice we should all knoweach other? but i guess that kind of people always findeach other out. grandma never has dream-people and mary joethinks i'm wrong in the upper story because i have them.but i think it's splendid to have them. you know, miss lavendar. tell me all about your little dream-boy.""he has blue eyes and curly hair.
he steals in and wakens me with a kissevery morning. then all day he plays here in the garden...and i play with him. such games as we have.we run races and talk with the echoes; and i tell him stories. and when twilight comes ...""i know," interrupted paul eagerly. "he comes and sits beside you ... so...because of course at twelve he'd betoo big to climb into your lap ...and lays his head on your shoulder...so...and youput your arms about him and hold him tight, tight, and rest your cheek on his head...yes, that's the very way.
oh, you do know, miss lavendar." anne found the two of them there when shecame out of the stone house, and something in miss lavendar's face made her hate todisturb them. "i'm afraid we must go, paul, if we want toget home before dark. miss lavendar, i'm going to invite myselfto echo lodge for a whole week pretty soon." "if you come for a week i'll keep you fortwo," threatened miss lavendar. chapter xxviiithe prince comes back to the enchanted palace
the last day of school came and went.a triumphant "semi-annual examination" was held and anne's pupils acquitted themselvessplendidly. at the close they gave her an address and awriting desk. all the girls and ladies present cried, andsome of the boys had it cast up to them later on that they cried too, although theyalways denied it. mrs. harmon andrews, mrs. peter sloane, andmrs. william bell walked home together and talked things over. "i do think it is such a pity anne isleaving when the children seem so much attached to her," sighed mrs. peter sloane,who had a habit of sighing over everything
and even finished off her jokes that way. "to be sure," she added hastily, "we allknow we'll have a good teacher next year too.""jane will do her duty, i've no doubt," said mrs. andrews rather stiffly. "i don't suppose she'll tell the childrenquite so many fairy tales or spend so much time roaming about the woods with them. but she has her name on the inspector'sroll of honor and the newbridge people are in a terrible state over her leaving.""i'm real glad anne is going to college," said mrs. bell.
"she has always wanted it and it will be asplendid thing for her." "well, i don't know."mrs. andrews was determined not to agree fully with anybody that day. "i don't see that anne needs any moreeducation. she'll probably be marrying gilbert blythe,if his infatuation for her lasts till he gets through college, and what good willlatin and greek do her then? if they taught you at college how to managea man there might be some sense in her going." mrs. harmon andrews, so avonlea gossipwhispered, had never learned how to manage
her "man," and as a result the andrewshousehold was not exactly a model of domestic happiness. "i see that the charlottetown call to mr.allan is up before the presbytery," said mrs. bell."that means we'll be losing him soon, i suppose." "they're not going before september," saidmrs. sloane. "it will be a great loss to thecommunity...though i always did think that mrs. allan dressed rather too gay for aminister's wife. but we are none of us perfect.
did you notice how neat and snug mr.harrison looked today? i never saw such a changed man.he goes to church every sunday and has subscribed to the salary." "hasn't that paul irving grown to be a bigboy?" said mrs. andrews. "he was such a mite for his age when hecame here. i declare i hardly knew him today. he's getting to look a lot like hisfather." "he's a smart boy," said mrs. bell. "he's smart enough, but"...mrs. andrewslowered her voice..."i believe he tells
queer stories. gracie came home from school one day lastweek with the greatest rigmarole he had told her about people who lived down at theshore...stories there couldn't be a word of truth in, you know. i told gracie not to believe them, and shesaid paul didn't intend her to. but if he didn't what did he tell them toher for?" "anne says paul is a genius," said mrs.sloane. "he may be.you never know what to expect of them americans," said mrs. andrews.
mrs. andrews' only acquaintance with theword "genius" was derived from the colloquial fashion of calling any eccentricindividual "a queer genius." she probably thought, with mary joe, thatit meant a person with something wrong in his upper story. back in the schoolroom anne was sittingalone at her desk, as she had sat on the first day of school two years before, herface leaning on her hand, her dewy eyes looking wistfully out of the window to thelake of shining waters. her heart was so wrung over the partingwith her pupils that for a moment college had lost all its charm.
she still felt the clasp of annetta bell'sarms about her neck and heard the childish wail, "i'll never love any teacher as muchas you, miss shirley, never, never." for two years she had worked earnestly andfaithfully, making many mistakes and learning from them.she had had her reward. she had taught her scholars something, butshe felt that they had taught her much more...lessons of tenderness, self-control,innocent wisdom, lore of childish hearts. perhaps she had not succeeded in"inspiring" any wonderful ambitions in her pupils, but she had taught them, more byher own sweet personality than by all her careful precepts, that it was good and
necessary in the years that were beforethem to live their lives finely and graciously, holding fast to truth andcourtesy and kindness, keeping aloof from all that savored of falsehood and meannessand vulgarity. they were, perhaps, all unconscious ofhaving learned such lessons; but they would remember and practice them long after theyhad forgotten the capital of afghanistan and the dates of the wars of the roses. "another chapter in my life is closed,"said anne aloud, as she locked her desk. she really felt very sad over it; but theromance in the idea of that "closed chapter" did comfort her a little.
anne spent a fortnight at echo lodge earlyin her vacation and everybody concerned had a good time. she took miss lavendar on a shoppingexpedition to town and persuaded her to buy a new organdy dress; then came theexcitement of cutting and making it together, while the happy charlotta thefourth basted and swept up clippings. miss lavendar had complained that she couldnot feel much interest in anything, but the sparkle came back to her eyes over herpretty dress. "what a foolish, frivolous person i mustbe," she sighed. "i'm wholesomely ashamed to think that anew dress... even it is a forget-me-not
organdy...should exhilarate me so, when agood conscience and an extra contribution to foreign missions couldn't do it." midway in her visit anne went home to greengables for a day to mend the twins' stockings and settle up davy's accumulatedstore of questions. in the evening she went down to the shoreroad to see paul irving. as she passed by the low, square window ofthe irving sitting room she caught a glimpse of paul on somebody's lap; but thenext moment he came flying through the hall. "oh, miss shirley," he cried excitedly,"you can't think what has happened!
something so splendid.father is here... just think of that! father is here! come right in.father, this is my beautiful teacher. you know, father."stephen irving came forward to meet anne with a smile. he was a tall, handsome man of middle age,with iron-gray hair, deep-set, dark blue eyes, and a strong, sad face, splendidlymodeled about chin and brow. just the face for a hero of romance, annethought with a thrill of intense satisfaction.
it was so disappointing to meet someone whoought to be a hero and find him bald or stooped, or otherwise lacking in manlybeauty. anne would have thought it dreadful if theobject of miss lavendar's romance had not looked the part. "so this is my little son's 'beautifulteacher,' of whom i have heard so much," said mr. irving with a hearty handshake. "paul's letters have been so full of you,miss shirley, that i feel as if i were pretty well acquainted with you already.i want to thank you for what you have done for paul.
i think that your influence has been justwhat he needed. mother is one of the best and dearest ofwomen; but her robust, matter-of-fact scotch common sense could not alwaysunderstand a temperament like my laddie's. what was lacking in her you have supplied. between you, i think paul's training inthese two past years has been as nearly ideal as a motherless boy's could be."everybody likes to be appreciated. under mr. irving's praise anne's face"burst flower like into rosy bloom," and the busy, weary man of the world, lookingat her, thought he had never seen a fairer, sweeter slip of girlhood than this little
"down east" schoolteacher with her red hairand wonderful eyes. paul sat between them blissfully happy."i never dreamed father was coming," he said radiantly. "even grandma didn't know it.it was a great surprise. as a general thing ..."paul shook his brown curls gravely..."i don't like to be surprised. you lose all the fun of expecting thingswhen you're surprised. but in a case like this it is all right.father came last night after i had gone to bed.
and after grandma and mary joe had stoppedbeing surprised he and grandma came upstairs to look at me, not meaning to wakeme up till morning. but i woke right up and saw father. i tell you i just sprang at him.""with a hug like a bear's," said mr. irving, putting his arms around paul'sshoulder smilingly. "i hardly knew my boy, he had grown so bigand brown and sturdy." "i don't know which was the most pleased tosee father, grandma or i," continued paul. "grandma's been in kitchen all day makingthe things father likes to eat. she wouldn't trust them to mary joe, shesays.
that's her way of showing gladness. i like best just to sit and talk to father.but i'm going to leave you for a little while now if you'll excuse me.i must get the cows for mary joe. that is one of my daily duties." when paul had scampered away to do his"daily duty" mr. irving talked to anne of various matters.but anne felt that he was thinking of something else underneath all the time. presently it came to the surface."in paul's last letter he spoke of going with you to visit an old ...friend ofmine...miss lewis at the stone house in
grafton. do you know her well?" "yes, indeed, she is a very dear friend ofmine," was anne's demure reply, which gave no hint of the sudden thrill that tingledover her from head to foot at mr. irving's question. anne "felt instinctively" that romance waspeeping at her around a corner. mr. irving rose and went to the window,looking out on a great, golden, billowing sea where a wild wind was harping. for a few moments there was silence in thelittle dark-walled room.
then he turned and looked down into anne'ssympathetic face with a smile, half- whimsical, half-tender. "i wonder how much you know," he said."i know all about it," replied anne promptly."you see," she explained hastily, "miss lavendar and i are very intimate. she wouldn't tell things of such a sacrednature to everybody. we are kindred spirits.""yes, i believe you are. well, i am going to ask a favor of you. i would like to go and see miss lavendar ifshe will let me.
will you ask her if i may come?"would she not? oh, indeed she would! yes, this was romance, the very, the realthing, with all the charm of rhyme and story and dream. it was a little belated, perhaps, like arose blooming in october which should have bloomed in june; but none the less a rose,all sweetness and fragrance, with the gleam of gold in its heart. never did anne's feet bear her on a morewilling errand than on that walk through the beechwoods to grafton the next morning.she found miss lavendar in the garden.
anne was fearfully excited. her hands grew cold and her voice trembled."miss lavendar, i have something to tell you...something very important.can you guess what it is?" anne never supposed that miss lavendarcould guess; but miss lavendar's face grew very pale and miss lavendar said in aquiet, still voice, from which all the color and sparkle that miss lavendar'svoice usually suggested had faded. "stephen irving is home?""how did you know? who told you?" cried anne disappointedly,vexed that her great revelation had been anticipated."nobody.
i knew that must be it, just from the wayyou spoke." "he wants to come and see you," said anne."may i send him word that he may?" "yes, of course," fluttered miss lavendar. "there is no reason why he shouldn't.he is only coming as any old friend might." anne had her own opinion about that as shehastened into the house to write a note at miss lavendar's desk. "oh, it's delightful to be living in astorybook," she thought gaily. "it will come out all right of course...itmust...and paul will have a mother after his own heart and everybody will be happy.
but mr. irving will take miss lavendaraway...and dear knows what will happen to the little stone house...and so there aretwo sides to it, as there seems to be to everything in this world." the important note was written and anneherself carried it to the grafton post office, where she waylaid the mail carrierand asked him to leave it at the avonlea office. "it's so very important," anne assured himanxiously. the mail carrier was a rather grumpy oldpersonage who did not at all look the part of a messenger of cupid; and anne was nonetoo certain that his memory was to be
trusted. but he said he would do his best toremember and she had to be contented with that. charlotta the fourth felt that some mysterypervaded the stone house that afternoon...a mystery from which she was excluded.miss lavendar roamed about the garden in a distracted fashion. anne, too, seemed possessed by a demon ofunrest, and walked to and fro and went up and down. charlotta the fourth endured it tillpatience ceased to be a virtue; then she
confronted anne on the occasion of thatromantic young person's third aimless peregrination through the kitchen. "please, miss shirley, ma'am," saidcharlotta the fourth, with an indignant toss of her very blue bows, "it's plain tobe seen you and miss lavendar have got a secret and i think, begging your pardon if i'm too forward, miss shirley, ma'am, thatit's real mean not to tell me when we've all been such chums." "oh, charlotta dear, i'd have told you allabout it if it were my secret...but it's miss lavendar's, you see.
however, i'll tell you this much...and ifnothing comes of it you must never breathe a word about it to a living soul.you see, prince charming is coming tonight. he came long ago, but in a foolish momentwent away and wandered afar and forgot the secret of the magic pathway to theenchanted castle, where the princess was weeping her faithful heart out for him. but at last he remembered it again and theprincess is waiting still...because nobody but her own dear prince could carry heroff." "oh, miss shirley, ma'am, what is that inprose?" gasped the mystified charlotta. anne laughed."in prose, an old friend of miss lavendar's
is coming to see her tonight." "do you mean an old beau of hers?" demandedthe literal charlotta. "that is probably what i do mean...inprose," answered anne gravely. "it is paul's father...stephen irving. and goodness knows what will come of it,but let us hope for the best, charlotta." "i hope that he'll marry miss lavendar,"was charlotta's unequivocal response. "some women's intended from the start to beold maids, and i'm afraid i'm one of them, miss shirley, ma'am, because i've awfullittle patience with the men. but miss lavendar never was.
and i've been awful worried, thinking whaton earth she'd do when i got so big i'd have to go to boston. there ain't any more girls in our familyand dear knows what she'd do if she got some stranger that might laugh at herpretendings and leave things lying round out of their place and not be willing to becalled charlotta the fifth. she might get someone who wouldn't be asunlucky as me in breaking dishes but she'd never get anyone who'd love her better." and the faithful little handmaiden dashedto the oven door with a sniff. they went through the form of having tea asusual that night at echo lodge; but nobody
really ate anything. after tea miss lavendar went to her roomand put on her new forget-me-not organdy, while anne did her hair for her. both were dreadfully excited; but misslavendar pretended to be very calm and indifferent. "i must really mend that rent in thecurtain tomorrow," she said anxiously, inspecting it as if it were the only thingof any importance just then. "those curtains have not worn as well asthey should, considering the price i paid. dear me, charlotta has forgotten to dustthe stair railing again.
i really must speak to her about it." anne was sitting on the porch steps whenstephen irving came down the lane and across the garden. "this is the one place where time standsstill," he said, looking around him with delighted eyes. "there is nothing changed about this houseor garden since i was here twenty-five years ago.it makes me feel young again." "you know time always does stand still inan enchanted palace," said anne seriously. "it is only when the prince comes thatthings begin to happen."
mr. irving smiled a little sadly into heruplifted face, all astar with its youth and promise."sometimes the prince comes too late," he said. he did not ask anne to translate her remarkinto prose. like all kindred spirits he "understood." "oh, no, not if he is the real princecoming to the true princess," said anne, shaking her red head decidedly, as sheopened the parlor door. when he had gone in she shut it tightlybehind him and turned to confront charlotta the fourth, who was in the hall, all "nodsand becks and wreathed smiles."
"oh, miss shirley, ma'am," she breathed, "ipeeked from the kitchen window...and he's awful handsome...and just the right age formiss lavendar. and oh, miss shirley, ma'am, do you thinkit would be much harm to listen at the door?" "it would be dreadful, charlotta," saidanne firmly, "so just you come away with me out of the reach of temptation.""i can't do anything, and it's awful to hang round just waiting," sighed charlotta. "what if he don't propose after all, missshirley, ma'am? you can never be sure of them men.my older sister, charlotta the first,
thought she was engaged to one once. but it turned out he had a differentopinion and she says she'll never trust one of them again. and i heard of another case where a manthought he wanted one girl awful bad when it was really her sister he wanted all thetime. when a man don't know his own mind, missshirley, ma'am, how's a poor woman going to be sure of it?""we'll go to the kitchen and clean the silver spoons," said anne. "that's a task which won't require muchthinking fortunately... for i couldn't
think tonight.and it will pass the time." it passed an hour. then, just as anne laid down the lastshining spoon, they heard the front door shut.both sought comfort fearfully in each other's eyes. "oh, miss shirley, ma'am," gaspedcharlotta, "if he's going away this early there's nothing into it and never will be."they flew to the window. mr. irving had no intention of going away. he and miss lavendar were strolling slowlydown the middle path to the stone bench.
"oh, miss shirley, ma'am, he's got his armaround her waist," whispered charlotta the fourth delightedly. "he must have proposed to her or she'dnever allow it." anne caught charlotta the fourth by her ownplump waist and danced her around the kitchen until they were both out of breath. "oh, charlotta," she cried gaily, "i'mneither a prophetess nor the daughter of a prophetess but i'm going to make aprediction. there'll be a wedding in this old stonehouse before the maple leaves are red. do you want that translated into prose,charlotta?"
"no, i can understand that," saidcharlotta. "a wedding ain't poetry.why, miss shirley, ma'am, you're crying! what for?" "oh, because it's all so beautiful...andstory bookish...and romantic...and sad," said anne, winking the tears out of hereyes. "it's all perfectly lovely...but there's alittle sadness mixed up in it too, somehow." "oh, of course there's a resk in marryinganybody," conceded charlotta the fourth, "but, when all's said and done, missshirley, ma'am, there's many a worse thing
than a husband." chapter xxixpoetry and prose for the next month anne lived in what, foravonlea, might be called a whirl of excitement.the preparation of her own modest outfit for redmond was of secondary importance. miss lavendar was getting ready to bemarried and the stone house was the scene of endless consultations and plannings anddiscussions, with charlotta the fourth hovering on the outskirts of things inagitated delight and wonder. then the dressmaker came, and there was therapture and wretchedness of choosing
fashions and being fitted. anne and diana spent half their time atecho lodge and there were nights when anne could not sleep for wondering whether shehad done right in advising miss lavendar to select brown rather than navy blue for her traveling dress, and to have her gray silkmade princess. everybody concerned in miss lavendar'sstory was very happy. paul irving rushed to green gables to talkthe news over with anne as soon as his father had told him. "i knew i could trust father to pick me outa nice little second mother," he said
proudly."it's a fine thing to have a father you can depend on, teacher. i just love miss lavendar.grandma is pleased, too. she says she's real glad father didn't pickout an american for his second wife, because, although it turned out all rightthe first time, such a thing wouldn't be likely to happen twice. mrs. lynde says she thoroughly approves ofthe match and thinks its likely miss lavendar will give up her queer notions andbe like other people, now that she's going to be married.
but i hope she won't give her queer notionsup, teacher, because i like them. and i don't want her to be like otherpeople. there are too many other people around asit is. you know, teacher."charlotta the fourth was another radiant person. "oh, miss shirley, ma'am, it has all turnedout so beautiful. when mr. irving and miss lavendar come backfrom their tower i'm to go up to boston and live with them...and me only fifteen, andthe other girls never went till they were sixteen.
ain't mr. irving splendid?he just worships the ground she treads on and it makes me feel so queer sometimes tosee the look in his eyes when he's watching her. it beggars description, miss shirley,ma'am. i'm awful thankful they're so fond of eachother. it's the best way, when all's said anddone, though some folks can get along without it. i've got an aunt who has been married threetimes and says she married the first time for love and the last two times forstrictly business, and was happy with all
three except at the times of the funerals. but i think she took a resk, miss shirley,ma'am." "oh, it's all so romantic," breathed anneto marilla that night. "if i hadn't taken the wrong path that daywe went to mr. kimball's i'd never have known miss lavendar; and if i hadn't mether i'd never have taken paul there...and he'd never have written to his father about visiting miss lavendar just as mr. irvingwas starting for san francisco. mr. irving says whenever he got that letterhe made up his mind to send his partner to san francisco and come here instead.
he hadn't heard anything of miss lavendarfor fifteen years. somebody had told him then that she was tobe married and he thought she was and never asked anybody anything about her. and now everything has come right.and i had a hand in bringing it about. perhaps, as mrs. lynde says, everything isforeordained and it was bound to happen anyway. but even so, it's nice to think one was aninstrument used by predestination. yes indeed, it's very romantic.""i can't see that it's so terribly romantic at all," said marilla rather crisply.
marilla thought anne was too worked upabout it and had plenty to do with getting ready for college without "traipsing" toecho lodge two days out of three helping "in the first place two young fools quarreland turn sulky; then steve irving goes to the states and after a spell gets marriedup there and is perfectly happy from all accounts. then his wife dies and after a decentinterval he thinks he'll come home and see if his first fancy'll have him. meanwhile, she's been living single,probably because nobody nice enough came along to want her, and they meet and agreeto be married after all.
now, where is the romance in all that?" "oh, there isn't any, when you put it thatway," gasped anne, rather as if somebody had thrown cold water over her."i suppose that's how it looks in prose. but it's very different if you look at itthrough poetry...and i think it's nicer anne recovered herself and her eyes shoneand her cheeks flushed..."to look at it through poetry." marilla glanced at the radiant young faceand refrained from further sarcastic comments. perhaps some realization came to her thatafter all it was better to have, like anne,
"the vision and the faculty divine" ...thatgift which the world cannot bestow or take away, of looking at life through some transfiguring...or revealing?...medium,whereby everything seemed apparelled in celestial light, wearing a glory and afreshness not visible to those who, like herself and charlotta the fourth, looked atthings only through prose. "when's the wedding to be?" she asked aftera pause. "the last wednesday in august. they are to be married in the garden underthe honeysuckle trellis...the very spot where mr. irving proposed to her twenty-five years ago.
marilla, that is romantic, even in prose. there's to be nobody there except mrs.irving and paul and gilbert and diana and i, and miss lavendar's cousins.and they will leave on the six o'clock train for a trip to the pacific coast. when they come back in the fall paul andcharlotta the fourth are to go up to boston to live with them. but echo lodge is to be left just as itis...only of course they'll sell the hens and cow, and board up the windows ...andevery summer they're coming down to live in it.
i'm so glad. it would have hurt me dreadfully nextwinter at redmond to think of that dear stone house all stripped and deserted, withempty rooms...or far worse still, with other people living in it. but i can think of it now, just as i'vealways seen it, waiting happily for the summer to bring life and laughter back toit again." there was more romance in the world thanthat which had fallen to the share of the middle-aged lovers of the stone house. anne stumbled suddenly on it one eveningwhen she went over to orchard slope by the
wood cut and came out into the barrygarden. diana barry and fred wright were standingtogether under the big willow. diana was leaning against the gray trunk,her lashes cast down on very crimson cheeks. one hand was held by fred, who stood withhis face bent toward her, stammering something in low earnest tones. there were no other people in the worldexcept their two selves at that magic moment; so neither of them saw anne, who,after one dazed glance of comprehension, turned and sped noiselessly back through
the spruce wood, never stopping till shegained her own gable room, where she sat breathlessly down by her window and triedto collect her scattered wits. "diana and fred are in love with eachother," she gasped. "oh, it does seem so...so...so hopelesslygrown up." anne, of late, had not been without hersuspicions that diana was proving false to the melancholy byronic hero of her earlydreams. but as "things seen are mightier thanthings heard," or suspected, the realization that it was actually so came toher with almost the shock of perfect surprise.
this was succeeded by a queer, littlelonely feeling ...as if, somehow, diana had gone forward into a new world, shutting agate behind her, leaving anne on the outside. "things are changing so fast it almostfrightens me," anne thought, a little sadly."and i'm afraid that this can't help making some difference between diana and me. i'm sure i can't tell her all my secretsafter this...she might tell fred. and what can she see in fred?he's very nice and jolly...but he's just fred wright."
it is always a very puzzlingquestion...what can somebody see in somebody else? but how fortunate after all that it is so,for if everybody saw alike...well, in that case, as the old indian said, "everybodywould want my squaw." it was plain that diana did see somethingin fred wright, however anne's eyes might be holden. diana came to green gables the nextevening, a pensive, shy young lady, and told anne the whole story in the duskyseclusion of the east gable. both girls cried and kissed and laughed.
"i'm so happy," said diana, "but it doesseem ridiculous to think of me being engaged.""what is it really like to be engaged?" asked anne curiously. "well, that all depends on who you'reengaged to," answered diana, with that maddening air of superior wisdom alwaysassumed by those who are engaged over those who are not. "it's perfectly lovely to be engaged tofred...but i think it would be simply horrid to be engaged to anyone else." "there's not much comfort for the rest ofus in that, seeing that there is only one
fred," laughed anne."oh, anne, you don't understand," said diana in vexation. "i didn't mean that...it's so hard toexplain. never mind, you'll understand sometime,when your own turn comes." "bless you, dearest of dianas, i understandnow. what is an imagination for if not to enableyou to peep at life through other people's eyes?" "you must be my bridesmaid, you know, anne.promise me that ...wherever you may be when i'm married.""i'll come from the ends of the earth if
necessary," promised anne solemnly. "of course, it won't be for ever so longyet," said diana, blushing. "three years at the very least...for i'monly eighteen and mother says no daughter of hers shall be married before she'stwenty-one. besides, fred's father is going to buy theabraham fletcher farm for him and he says he's got to have it two thirds paid forbefore he'll give it to him in his own name. but three years isn't any too much time toget ready for housekeeping, for i haven't a speck of fancy work made yet.but i'm going to begin crocheting doilies
tomorrow. myra gillis had thirty-seven doilies whenshe was married and i'm determined i shall have as many as she had." "i suppose it would be perfectly impossibleto keep house with only thirty-six doilies," conceded anne, with a solemn facebut dancing eyes. diana looked hurt. "i didn't think you'd make fun of me,anne," she said reproachfully. "dearest, i wasn't making fun of you,"cried anne repentantly. "i was only teasing you a bit.
i think you'll make the sweetest littlehousekeeper in the world. and i think it's perfectly lovely of you tobe planning already for your home o'dreams." anne had no sooner uttered the phrase,"home o'dreams," than it captivated her fancy and she immediately began theerection of one of her own. it was, of course, tenanted by an idealmaster, dark, proud, and melancholy; but oddly enough, gilbert blythe persisted inhanging about too, helping her arrange pictures, lay out gardens, and accomplish sundry other tasks which a proud andmelancholy hero evidently considered
beneath his dignity. anne tried to banish gilbert's image fromher castle in spain but, somehow, he went on being there, so anne, being in a hurry,gave up the attempt and pursued her aerial architecture with such success that her "home o'dreams" was built and furnishedbefore diana spoke again. "i suppose, anne, you must think it's funnyi should like fred so well when he's so different from the kind of man i've alwayssaid i would marry...the tall, slender kind? but somehow i wouldn't want fred to be talland slender...because, don't you see, he
wouldn't be fred then.of course," added diana rather dolefully, "we will be a dreadfully pudgy couple. but after all that's better than one of usbeing short and fat and the other tall and lean, like morgan sloane and his wife. mrs. lynde says it always makes her thinkof the long and short of it when she sees them together." "well," said anne to herself that night, asshe brushed her hair before her gilt framed mirror, "i am glad diana is so happy andsatisfied. but when my turn comes...if it everdoes...i do hope there'll be something a
little more thrilling about it.but then diana thought so too, once. i've heard her say time and again she'dnever get engaged any poky commonplace way...he'd have to do something splendid towin her. but she has changed. perhaps i'll change too.but i won't...and i'm determined i won't. oh, i think these engagements aredreadfully unsettling things when they happen to your intimate friends." chapter xxxa wedding at the stone house the last week in august came.miss lavendar was to be married in it.
two weeks later anne and gilbert wouldleave for redmond college. in a week's time mrs. rachel lynde wouldmove to green gables and set up her lares and penates in the erstwhile spare room,which was already prepared for her coming. she had sold all her superfluous householdplenishings by auction and was at present reveling in the congenial occupation ofhelping the allans pack up. mr. allan was to preach his farewell sermonthe next sunday. the old order was changing rapidly to giveplace to the new, as anne felt with a little sadness threading all her excitementand happiness. "changes ain't totally pleasant but they'reexcellent things," said mr. harrison
philosophically."two years is about long enough for things to stay exactly the same. if they stayed put any longer they mightgrow mossy." mr. harrison was smoking on his veranda. his wife had self-sacrificingly told thathe might smoke in the house if he took care to sit by an open window. mr. harrison rewarded this concession bygoing outdoors altogether to smoke in fine weather, and so mutual goodwill reigned.anne had come over to ask mrs. harrison for some of her yellow dahlias.
she and diana were going through to echolodge that evening to help miss lavendar and charlotta the fourth with their finalpreparations for the morrow's bridal. miss lavendar herself never had dahlias;she did not like them and they would not have suited the fine retirement of her old-fashioned garden. but flowers of any kind were rather scarcein avonlea and the neighboring districts that summer, thanks to uncle abe's storm;and anne and diana thought that a certain old cream-colored stone jug, usually kept sacred to doughnuts, brimmed over withyellow dahlias, would be just the thing to set in a dim angle of the stone housestairs, against the dark background of red
hall paper. "i s'pose you'll be starting off forcollege in a fortnight's time?" continued mr. harrison."well, we're going to miss you an awful lot, emily and me. to be sure, mrs. lynde'll be over there inyour place. there ain't nobody but a substitute can befound for them." the irony of mr. harrison's tone is quiteuntransferable to paper. in spite of his wife's intimacy with mrs.lynde, the best that could be said of the relationship between her and mr. harrisoneven under the new regime, was that they
preserved an armed neutrality. "yes, i'm going," said anne."i'm very glad with my head...and very sorry with my heart." "i s'pose you'll be scooping up all thehonors that are lying round loose at redmond." "i may try for one or two of them,"confessed anne, "but i don't care so much for things like that as i did two yearsago. what i want to get out of my college courseis some knowledge of the best way of living life and doing the most and best with it.i want to learn to understand and help
other people and myself." mr. harrison nodded."that's the idea exactly. that's what college ought to be for,instead of for turning out a lot of b.a.'s, so chock full of book-learning and vanitythat there ain't room for anything else. you're all right. college won't be able to do you much harm,i reckon." diana and anne drove over to echo lodgeafter tea, taking with them all the flowery spoil that several predatory expeditions intheir own and their neighbors' gardens had yielded.
they found the stone house agog withexcitement. charlotta the fourth was flying around withsuch vim and briskness that her blue bows seemed really to possess the power of beingeverywhere at once. like the helmet of navarre, charlotta'sblue bows waved ever in the thickest of the fray. "praise be to goodness you've come," shesaid devoutly, "for there's heaps of things to do...and the frosting on that cake won'tharden ...and there's all the silver to be rubbed up yet... and the horsehair trunk to be packed...and the roosters for thechicken salad are running out there beyant
the henhouse yet, crowing, miss shirley,ma'am. and miss lavendar ain't to be trusted to doa thing. i was thankful when mr. irving came a fewminutes ago and took her off for a walk in the woods. courting's all right in its place, missshirley, ma'am, but if you try to mix it up with cooking and scouring everything'sspoiled. that's my opinion, miss shirley, ma'am." anne and diana worked so heartily that byten o'clock even charlotta the fourth was satisfied.she braided her hair in innumerable plaits
and took her weary little bones off to bed. "but i'm sure i shan't sleep a blessedwink, miss shirley, ma'am, for fear that something'll go wrong at the lastminute...the cream won't whip...or mr. irving'll have a stroke and not be able tocome." "he isn't in the habit of having strokes,is he?" asked diana, the dimpled corners of her mouth twitching. to diana, charlotta the fourth was, if notexactly a thing of beauty, certainly a joy forever."they're not things that go by habit," said charlotta the fourth with dignity.
"they just happen...and there you are.anybody can have a stroke. you don't have to learn how. mr. irving looks a lot like an uncle ofmine that had one once just as he was sitting down to dinner one day.but maybe everything'll go all right. in this world you've just got to hope forthe best and prepare for the worst and take whatever god sends.""the only thing i'm worried about is that it won't be fine tomorrow," said diana. "uncle abe predicted rain for the middle ofthe week, and ever since the big storm i can't help believing there's a good deal inwhat uncle abe says."
anne, who knew better than diana just howmuch uncle abe had to do with the storm, was not much disturbed by this. she slept the sleep of the just and weary,and was roused at an unearthly hour by charlotta the fourth. "oh, miss shirley, ma'am, it's awful tocall you so early," came wailing through the keyhole, "but there's so much to doyet...and oh, miss shirley, ma'am, i'm skeered it's going to rain and i wish you'dget up and tell me you think it ain't." anne flew to the window, hoping againsthope that charlotta the fourth was saying this merely by way of rousing hereffectually.
but alas, the morning did lookunpropitious. below the window miss lavendar's garden,which should have been a glory of pale virgin sunshine, lay dim and windless; andthe sky over the firs was dark with moody clouds. "isn't it too mean!" said diana."we must hope for the best," said anne determinedly. "if it only doesn't actually rain, a cool,pearly gray day like this would really be nicer than hot sunshine." "but it will rain," mourned charlotta,creeping into the room, a figure of fun,
with her many braids wound about her head,the ends, tied up with white thread, sticking out in all directions. "it'll hold off till the last minute andthen pour cats and dogs. and all the folks will get sopping...andtrack mud all over the house...and they won't be able to be married under thehoneysuckle...and it's awful unlucky for no sun to shine on a bride, say what you will,miss shirley, ma'am. i knew things were going too well to last." charlotta the fourth seemed certainly tohave borrowed a leaf out of miss eliza andrews' book.it did not rain, though it kept on looking
as if it meant to. by noon the rooms were decorated, the tablebeautifully laid; and upstairs was waiting a bride, "adorned for her husband.""you do look sweet," said anne rapturously. "lovely," echoed diana. "everything's ready, miss shirley, ma'am,and nothing dreadful has happened yet," was charlotta's cheerful statement as shebetook herself to her little back room to dress. out came all the braids; the resultantrampant crinkliness was plaited into two tails and tied, not with two bows alone,but with four, of brand-new ribbon,
brightly blue. the two upper bows rather gave theimpression of overgrown wings sprouting from charlotta's neck, somewhat after thefashion of raphael's cherubs. but charlotta the fourth thought them verybeautiful, and after she had rustled into a white dress, so stiffly starched that itcould stand alone, she surveyed herself in her glass with great satisfaction...a satisfaction which lasted until she wentout in the hall and caught a glimpse through the spare room door of a tall girlin some softly clinging gown, pinning white, star-like flowers on the smoothripples of her ruddy hair.
"oh, i'll never be able to look like missshirley," thought poor charlotta despairingly. "you just have to be born so, i guess...don't seem's if any amount of practice could give you that air." by one o'clock the guests had come,including mr. and mrs. allan, for mr. allan was to perform the ceremony in the absenceof the grafton minister on his vacation. there was no formality about the marriage. miss lavendar came down the stairs to meether bridegroom at the foot, and as he took her hand she lifted her big brown eyes tohis with a look that made charlotta the
fourth, who intercepted it, feel queererthan ever. they went out to the honeysuckle arbor,where mr. allan was awaiting them. the guests grouped themselves as theypleased. anne and diana stood by the old stonebench, with charlotta the fourth between them, desperately clutching their hands inher cold, tremulous little paws. mr. allan opened his blue book and theceremony proceeded. just as miss lavendar and stephen irvingwere pronounced man and wife a very beautiful and symbolic thing happened. the sun suddenly burst through the gray andpoured a flood of radiance on the happy
bride.instantly the garden was alive with dancing shadows and flickering lights. "what a lovely omen," thought anne, as sheran to kiss the bride. then the three girls left the rest of theguests laughing around the bridal pair while they flew into the house to see thatall was in readiness for the feast. "thanks be to goodness, it's over, missshirley, ma'am," breathed charlotta the fourth, "and they're married safe andsound, no matter what happens now. the bags of rice are in the pantry, ma'am,and the old shoes are behind the door, and the cream for whipping is on the sullarsteps."
at half past two mr. and mrs. irving left,and everybody went to bright river to see them off on the afternoon train. as miss lavendar...i beg her pardon, mrs.irving...stepped from the door of her old home gilbert and the girls threw the riceand charlotta the fourth hurled an old shoe with such excellent aim that she struck mr.allan squarely on the head. but it was reserved for paul to give theprettiest send-off. he popped out of the porch ringingfuriously a huge old brass dinner bell which had adorned the dining room mantel. paul's only motive was to make a joyfulnoise; but as the clangor died away, from
point and curve and hill across the rivercame the chime of "fairy wedding bells," ringing clearly, sweetly, faintly and more faint, as if miss lavendar's beloved echoeswere bidding her greeting and farewell. and so, amid this benediction of sweetsounds, miss lavendar drove away from the old life of dreams and make-believes to afuller life of realities in the busy world beyond. two hours later anne and charlotta thefourth came down the lane again. gilbert had gone to west grafton on anerrand and diana had to keep an engagement at home.
anne and charlotta had come back to putthings in order and lock up the little stone house. the garden was a pool of late goldensunshine, with butterflies hovering and bees booming; but the little house hadalready that indefinable air of desolation which always follows a festivity. "oh dear me, don't it look lonesome?"sniffed charlotta the fourth, who had been crying all the way home from the station. "a wedding ain't much cheerfuller than afuneral after all, when it's all over, miss shirley, ma'am."a busy evening followed.
the decorations had to be removed, thedishes washed, the uneaten delicacies packed into a basket for the delectation ofcharlotta the fourth's young brothers at home. anne would not rest until everything was inapple-pie order; after charlotta had gone home with her plunder anne went over thestill rooms, feeling like one who trod alone some banquet hall deserted, andclosed the blinds. then she locked the door and sat down underthe silver poplar to wait for gilbert, feeling very tired but still unweariedlythinking "long, long thoughts." "what are you thinking of, anne?" askedgilbert, coming down the walk.
he had left his horse and buggy out at theroad. "of miss lavendar and mr. irving," answeredanne dreamily. "isn't it beautiful to think how everythinghas turned out...how they have come together again after all the years ofseparation and misunderstanding?" "yes, it's beautiful," said gilbert,looking steadily down into anne's uplifted face, "but wouldn't it have been morebeautiful still, anne, if there had been no separation or misunderstanding... if they had come hand in hand all the way throughlife, with no memories behind them but those which belonged to each other?"
for a moment anne's heart fluttered queerlyand for the first time her eyes faltered under gilbert's gaze and a rosy flushstained the paleness of her face. it was as if a veil that had hung beforeher inner consciousness had been lifted, giving to her view a revelation ofunsuspected feelings and realities. perhaps, after all, romance did not comeinto one's life with pomp and blare, like a gay knight riding down; perhaps it crept toone's side like an old friend through quiet ways; perhaps it revealed itself in seeming prose, until some sudden shaft ofillumination flung athwart its pages betrayed the rhythm and the music,perhaps... perhaps...love unfolded
naturally out of a beautiful friendship, as a golden-hearted rose slipping from itsgreen sheath. then the veil dropped again; but the annewho walked up the dark lane was not quite the same anne who had driven gaily down itthe evening before. the page of girlhood had been turned, as byan unseen finger, and the page of womanhood was before her with all its charm andmystery, its pain and gladness. gilbert wisely said nothing more; but inhis silence he read the history of the next four years in the light of anne'sremembered blush. four years of earnest, happy work...andthen the guerdon of a useful knowledge
gained and a sweet heart won.behind them in the garden the little stone house brooded among the shadows. it was lonely but not forsaken.it had not yet done with dreams and laughter and the joy of life; there were tobe future summers for the little stone house; meanwhile, it could wait. and over the river in purple durance theechoes bided their time.
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