|
"We're not in the habit of shutting people up in dark damp
dungeons,"
said Marilla drily, "especially as they're rather scarce in
Avonlea. But
apologize to Mrs. Lynde you must and shall and you'll stay here
in your
room until you can tell me you're willing to do it."
"I shall
have to stay here forever then," said Anne mournfully, "because
I can't tell
Mrs. Lynde I'm sorry I said those things to her. How can
I? I'm NOT sorry.
I'm sorry I've vexed you; but I'm GLAD I told her just
what I did. It was a
great satisfaction. I can't say I'm sorry when I'm
not, can I? I can't even
IMAGINE I'm sorry."
"Perhaps your imagination will be in better working
order by the
morning," said Marilla, rising to depart. "You'll have the night
to
think over your conduct in and come to a better frame of mind. You
said
you would try to be a very good girl if we kept you at Green Gables,
but
I must say it hasn't seemed very much like it this
evening."
Leaving this Parthian shaft to rankle in Anne's stormy bosom,
Marilla
descended to the kitchen, grievously troubled in mind and vexed
in
soul. She was as angry with herself as with Anne, because, whenever
she
recalled Mrs. Rachel's dumbfounded countenance her lips twitched
with
amusement and she felt a most reprehensible desire to
laugh.
CHAPTER X. Anne's Apology
Marilla said
nothing to Matthew about the affair that evening; but when
Anne proved still
refractory the next morning an explanation had to be
made to account for her
absence from the breakfast table. Marilla told
Matthew the whole story,
taking pains to impress him with a due sense of
the enormity of Anne's
behavior.
"It's a good thing Rachel Lynde got a calling down; she's a
meddlesome
old gossip," was Matthew's consolatory rejoinder.
"Matthew
Cuthbert, I'm astonished at you. You know that Anne's behavior
was dreadful,
and yet you take her part! I suppose you'll be saying next
thing that she
oughtn't to be punished at all!"
"Well now--no--not exactly," said
Matthew uneasily. "I reckon she
ought to be punished a little. But don't be
too hard on her, Marilla.
Recollect she hasn't ever had anyone to teach her
right. You're--you're
going to give her something to eat, aren't
you?"
"When did you ever hear of me starving people into good
behavior?"
demanded Marilla indignantly. "She'll have her meals regular,
and
I'll carry them up to her myself. But she'll stay up there until
she's
willing to apologize to Mrs. Lynde, and that's final,
Matthew."
Breakfast, dinner, and supper were very silent meals--for Anne
still
remained obdurate. After each meal Marilla carried a well-filled
tray
to the east gable and brought it down later on not noticeably
depleted.
Matthew eyed its last descent with a troubled eye. Had Anne
eaten
anything at all?
When Marilla went out that evening to bring the
cows from the back
pasture, Matthew, who had been hanging about the barns and
watching,
slipped into the house with the air of a burglar and crept
upstairs. As
a general thing Matthew gravitated between the kitchen and the
little
bedroom off the hall where he slept; once in a while he
ventured
uncomfortably into the parlor or sitting room when the minister came
to
tea. But he had never been upstairs in his own house since the spring
he
helped Marilla paper the spare bedroom, and that was four years
ago.
He tiptoed along the hall and stood for several minutes outside
the
door of the east gable before he summoned courage to tap on it with
his
fingers and then open the door to peep in.
Anne was sitting on the
yellow chair by the window gazing mournfully out
into the garden. Very small
and unhappy she looked, and Matthew's heart
smote him. He softly closed the
door and tiptoed over to her.
"Anne," he whispered, as if afraid of being
overheard, "how are you
making it, Anne?"
Anne smiled
wanly.
"Pretty well. I imagine a good deal, and that helps to pass the
time. Of
course, it's rather lonesome. But then, I may as well get used to
that."
Anne smiled again, bravely facing the long years of
solitary
imprisonment before her.
Matthew recollected that he must say
what he had come to say without
loss of time, lest Marilla return
prematurely. "Well now, Anne, don't
you think you'd better do it and have it
over with?" he whispered.
"It'll have to be done sooner or later, you know,
for Marilla's a
dreadful deter-mined woman--dreadful determined, Anne. Do it
right off,
I say, and have it over."
"Do you mean apologize to Mrs.
Lynde?"
"Yes--apologize--that's the very word," said Matthew eagerly.
"Just
smooth it over so to speak. That's what I was trying to get
at."
"I suppose I could do it to oblige you," said Anne thoughtfully.
"It
would be true enough to say I am sorry, because I AM sorry now. I
wasn't
a bit sorry last night. I was mad clear through, and I stayed mad
all
night. I know I did because I woke up three times and I was
just
furious every time. But this morning it was over. I wasn't in a
temper
anymore--and it left a dreadful sort of goneness, too. I felt so
ashamed
of myself. But I just couldn't think of going and telling Mrs.
Lynde
so. It would be so humiliating. I made up my mind I'd stay shut up
here
forever rather than do that. But still--I'd do anything for you--if
you
really want me to--"
"Well now, of course I do. It's terrible
lonesome downstairs without
you. Just go and smooth things over--that's a
good girl."
"Very well," said Anne resignedly. "I'll tell Marilla as soon
as she
comes in I've repented."
"That's right--that's right, Anne. But
don't tell Marilla I said
anything about it. She might think I was putting my
oar in and I
promised not to do that."
"Wild horses won't drag the
secret from me," promised Anne solemnly.
"How would wild horses drag a secret
from a person anyhow?"
But Matthew was gone, scared at his own success.
He fled hastily to the
remotest corner of the horse pasture lest Marilla
should suspect what
he had been up to. Marilla herself, upon her return to
the house, was
agreeably surprised to hear a plaintive voice calling,
"Marilla" over
the banisters.
"Well?" she said, going into the
hall.
"I'm sorry I lost my temper and said rude things, and I'm willing
to go
and tell Mrs. Lynde so."
"Very well." Marilla's crispness gave
no sign of her relief. She had
been wondering what under the canopy she
should do if Anne did not give
in. "I'll take you down after
milking."
Accordingly, after milking, behold Marilla and Anne walking
down the
lane, the former erect and triumphant, the latter drooping and
dejected.
But halfway down Anne's dejection vanished as if by enchantment.
She
lifted her head and stepped lightly along, her eyes fixed on the
sunset
sky and an air of subdued exhilaration about her. Marilla beheld
the
change disapprovingly. This was no meek penitent such as it behooved
her
to take into the presence of the offended Mrs. Lynde.
"What are
you thinking of, Anne?" she asked sharply.
"I'm imagining out what I must
say to Mrs. Lynde," answered Anne
dreamily.
This was satisfactory--or
should have been so. But Marilla could not
rid herself of the notion that
something in her scheme of punishment was
going askew. Anne had no business
to look so rapt and radiant.
Rapt and radiant Anne continued until they
were in the very presence
of Mrs. Lynde, who was sitting knitting by her
kitchen window. Then the
radiance vanished. Mournful penitence appeared on
every feature. Before
a word was spoken Anne suddenly went down on her knees
before the
astonished Mrs. Rachel and held out her hands
beseechingly.
"Oh, Mrs. Lynde, I am so extremely sorry," she said with a
quiver in
her voice. "I could never express all my sorrow, no, not if I used
up
a whole dictionary. You must just imagine it. I behaved terribly
to
you--and I've disgraced the dear friends, Matthew and Marilla, who
have
let me stay at Green Gables although I'm not a boy. I'm a
dreadfully
wicked and ungrateful girl, and I deserve to be punished and cast
out
by respectable people forever. It was very wicked of me to fly into
a
temper because you told me the truth. It WAS the truth; every word
you
said was true. My hair is red and I'm freckled and skinny and
ugly.
What I said to you was true, too, but I shouldn't have said it. Oh,
Mrs.
Lynde, please, please, forgive me. If you refuse it will be a
lifelong
sorrow on a poor little orphan girl, would you, even if she had
a
dreadful temper? Oh, I am sure you wouldn't. Please say you forgive
me,
Mrs. Lynde."
Anne clasped her hands together, bowed her head, and
waited for the word
of judgment.
There was no mistaking her
sincerity--it breathed in every tone of her
voice. Both Marilla and Mrs.
Lynde recognized its unmistakable ring.
But the former under-stood in dismay
that Anne was actually enjoying
her valley of humiliation--was reveling in
the thoroughness of her
abasement. Where was the wholesome punishment upon
which she, Marilla,
had plumed herself? Anne had turned it into a species of
positive
pleasure.
Good Mrs. Lynde, not being overburdened with
perception, did not see
this. She only perceived that Anne had made a very
thorough apology and
all resentment vanished from her kindly, if somewhat
officious, heart.
"There, there, get up, child," she said heartily. "Of
course I forgive
you. I guess I was a little too hard on you, anyway. But I'm
such an
outspoken person. You just mustn't mind me, that's what. It can't
be
denied your hair is terrible red; but I knew a girl once--went to
school
with her, in fact--whose hair was every mite as red as yours when
she
was young, but when she grew up it darkened to a real handsome auburn.
I
wouldn't be a mite surprised if yours did, too--not a mite."
"Oh,
Mrs. Lynde!" Anne drew a long breath as she rose to her feet. "You
have given
me a hope. I shall always feel that you are a benefactor. Oh,
I could endure
anything if I only thought my hair would be a handsome
auburn when I grew up.
It would be so much easier to be good if one's
hair was a handsome auburn,
don't you think? And now may I go out into
your garden and sit on that bench
under the apple-trees while you and
Marilla are talking? There is so much
more scope for imagination out
there."
"Laws, yes, run along, child.
And you can pick a bouquet of them white
June lilies over in the corner if
you like."
As the door closed behind Anne Mrs. Lynde got briskly up to
light a
lamp.
"She's a real odd little thing. Take this chair,
Marilla; it's easier
than the one you've got; I just keep that for the hired
boy to sit
on. Yes, she certainly is an odd child, but there is something
kind of
taking about her after all. I don't feel so surprised at you and
Matthew
keeping her as I did--nor so sorry for you, either. She may turn out
all
right. Of course, she has a queer way of expressing herself--a
little
too--well, too kind of forcible, you know; but she'll likely get
over
that now that she's come to live among civilized folks. And then,
her
temper's pretty quick, I guess; but there's one comfort, a child
that
has a quick temper, just blaze up and cool down, ain't never likely
to
be sly or deceitful. Preserve me from a sly child, that's what. On
the
whole, Marilla, I kind of like her."
When Marilla went home Anne
came out of the fragrant twilight of the
orchard with a sheaf of white
narcissi in her hands.
"I apologized pretty well, didn't I?" she said
proudly as they went
down the lane. "I thought since I had to do it I might
as well do it
thoroughly."
"You did it thoroughly, all right enough,"
was Marilla's comment.
Marilla was dismayed at finding herself inclined to
laugh over the
recollection. She had also an uneasy feeling that she ought to
scold
Anne for apologizing so well; but then, that was ridiculous!
She
compromised with her conscience by saying severely:
"I hope you
won't have occasion to make many more such apologies. I hope
you'll try to
control your temper now, Anne."
"That wouldn't be so hard if people
wouldn't twit me about my looks,"
said Anne with a sigh. "I don't get cross
about other things; but I'm
SO tired of being twitted about my hair and it
just makes me boil right
over. Do you suppose my hair will really be a
handsome auburn when I
grow up?"
"You shouldn't think so much about
your looks, Anne. I'm afraid you are
a very vain little girl."
"How
can I be vain when I know I'm homely?" protested Anne. "I love
pretty things;
and I hate to look in the glass and see something that
isn't pretty. It makes
me feel so sorrowful--just as I feel when I look
at any ugly thing. I pity it
because it isn't beautiful."
"Handsome is as handsome does," quoted
Marilla. "I've had that said
to me before, but I have my doubts about it,"
remarked skeptical Anne,
sniffing at her narcissi. "Oh, aren't these flowers
sweet! It was lovely
of Mrs. Lynde to give them to me. I have no hard
feelings against Mrs.
Lynde now. It gives you a lovely, comfortable feeling
to apologize and
be forgiven, doesn't it? Aren't the stars bright tonight? If
you could
live in a star, which one would you pick? I'd like that lovely
clear big
one away over there above that dark hill."
"Anne, do hold
your tongue," said Marilla, thoroughly worn out trying to
follow the
gyrations of Anne's thoughts.
Anne said no more until they turned into
their own lane. A little gypsy
wind came down it to meet them, laden with the
spicy perfume of young
dew-wet ferns. Far up in the shadows a cheerful light
gleamed out
through the trees from the kitchen at Green Gables. Anne suddenly
came
close to Marilla and slipped her hand into the older woman's hard
palm.
"It's lovely to be going home and know it's home," she said. "I
love
Green Gables already, and I never loved any place before. No place
ever
seemed like home. Oh, Marilla, I'm so happy. I could pray right now
and
not find it a bit hard."
Something warm and pleasant welled up in
Marilla's heart at touch of
that thin little hand in her own--a throb of the
maternity she had
missed, perhaps. Its very unaccustomedness and sweetness
disturbed
her. She hastened to restore her sensations to their normal calm
by
inculcating a moral.
"If you'll be a good girl you'll always be
happy, Anne. And you should
never find it hard to say your
prayers."
"Saying one's prayers isn't exactly the same thing as praying,"
said
Anne meditatively. "But I'm going to imagine that I'm the wind that
is
blowing up there in those tree tops. When I get tired of the trees
I'll
imagine I'm gently waving down here in the ferns--and then I'll fly
over
to Mrs. Lynde's garden and set the flowers dancing--and then I'll
go
with one great swoop over the clover field--and then I'll blow over
the
Lake of Shining Waters and ripple it all up into little sparkling
waves.
Oh, there's so much scope for imagination in a wind! So I'll not
talk
any more just now, Marilla."
"Thanks be to goodness for that,"
breathed Marilla in devout relief.
CHAPTER XI. Anne's
Impressions of Sunday-School
"Well, how do you like them?" said
Marilla.
Anne was standing in the gable room, looking solemnly at three
new
dresses spread out on the bed. One was of snuffy colored gingham
which
Marilla had been tempted to buy from a peddler the preceding
summer
because it looked so serviceable; one was of black-and-white
checkered
sateen which she had picked up at a bargain counter in the winter;
and
one was a stiff print of an ugly blue shade which she had purchased
that
week at a Carmody store.
She had made them up herself, and they
were all made alike--plain skirts
fulled tightly to plain waists, with
sleeves as plain as waist and skirt
and tight as sleeves could
be.
"I'll imagine that I like them," said Anne soberly.
"I don't
want you to imagine it," said Marilla, offended. "Oh, I can see
you don't
like the dresses! What is the matter with them? Aren't they
neat and clean
and new?"
"Yes."
"Then why don't you like
them?"
"They're--they're not--pretty," said Anne
reluctantly.
"Pretty!" Marilla sniffed. "I didn't trouble my head about
getting
pretty dresses for you. I don't believe in pampering vanity, Anne,
I'll
tell you that right off. Those dresses are good, sensible,
serviceable
dresses, without any frills or furbelows about them, and they're
all
you'll get this summer. The brown gingham and the blue print will
do
you for school when you begin to go. The sateen is for church and
Sunday
school. I'll expect you to keep them neat and clean and not to
tear
them. I should think you'd be grateful to get most anything after
those
skimpy wincey things you've been wearing."
"Oh, I AM grateful,"
protested Anne. "But I'd be ever so much
gratefuller if--if you'd made just
one of them with puffed sleeves.
Puffed sleeves are so fashionable now. It
would give me such a thrill,
Marilla, just to wear a dress with puffed
sleeves."
"Well, you'll have to do without your thrill. I hadn't any
material
to waste on puffed sleeves. I think they are ridiculous-looking
things
anyhow. I prefer the plain, sensible ones."
"But I'd rather
look ridiculous when everybody else does than plain and
sensible all by
myself," persisted Anne mournfully.
"Trust you for that! Well, hang those
dresses carefully up in your
closet, and then sit down and learn the Sunday
school lesson. I got
a quarterly from Mr. Bell for you and you'll go to
Sunday school
tomorrow," said Marilla, disappearing downstairs in high
dudgeon.
Anne clasped her hands and looked at the dresses.
"I did
hope there would be a white one with puffed sleeves," she
whispered
disconsolately. "I prayed for one, but I didn't much expect it
on that
account. I didn't suppose God would have time to bother about
a little orphan
girl's dress. I knew I'd just have to depend on
Marilla for it. Well,
fortunately I can imagine that one of them is of
snow-white muslin with
lovely lace frills and three-puffed sleeves."
The next morning warnings
of a sick headache prevented Marilla from
going to Sunday-school with
Anne.
"You'll have to go down and call for Mrs. Lynde, Anne," she
said.
"She'll see that you get into the right class. Now, mind you
behave
yourself properly. Stay to preaching afterwards and ask Mrs. Lynde
to
show you our pew. Here's a cent for collection. Don't stare at
people
and don't fidget. I shall expect you to tell me the text when you
come
home."
Anne started off irreproachable, arrayed in the stiff
black-and-white
sateen, which, while decent as regards length and certainly
not open to
the charge of skimpiness, contrived to emphasize every corner and
angle
of her thin figure. Her hat was a little, flat, glossy, new sailor,
the
extreme plainness of which had likewise much disappointed Anne,
who
had permitted herself secret visions of ribbon and flowers. The
latter,
however, were supplied before Anne reached the main road, for
being
confronted halfway down the lane with a golden frenzy of
wind-stirred
buttercups and a glory of wild roses, Anne promptly and
liberally
garlanded her hat with a heavy wreath of them. Whatever other
people
might have thought of the result it satisfied Anne, and she
tripped
gaily down the road, holding her ruddy head with its decoration of
pink
and yellow very proudly.
When she had reached Mrs. Lynde's house
she found that lady gone.
Nothing daunted, Anne proceeded onward to the
church alone. In the porch
she found a crowd of little girls, all more or
less gaily attired in
whites and blues and pinks, and all staring with
curious eyes at this
stranger in their midst, with her extraordinary head
adornment. Avonlea
little girls had already heard queer stories about Anne.
Mrs. Lynde said
she had an awful temper; Jerry Buote, the hired boy at Green
Gables,
said she talked all the time to herself or to the trees and
flowers
like a crazy girl. They looked at her and whispered to each other
behind
their quarterlies. Nobody made any friendly advances, then or
later
on when the opening exercises were over and Anne found herself in
Miss
Rogerson's class.
Miss Rogerson was a middle-aged lady who had
taught a Sunday-school
class for twenty years. Her method of teaching was to
ask the printed
questions from the quarterly and look sternly over its edge
at the
particular little girl she thought ought to answer the question.
She
looked very often at Anne, and Anne, thanks to Marilla's
drilling,
answered promptly; but it may be questioned if she understood very
much
about either question or answer.
She did not think she liked Miss
Rogerson, and she felt very miserable;
every other little girl in the class
had puffed sleeves. Anne felt that
life was really not worth living without
puffed sleeves.
"Well, how did you like Sunday school?" Marilla wanted to
know when Anne
came home. Her wreath having faded, Anne had discarded it in
the lane,
so Marilla was spared the knowledge of that for a time.
"I
didn't like it a bit. It was horrid."
"Anne Shirley!" said Marilla
rebukingly.
Anne sat down on the rocker with a long sigh, kissed one of
Bonny's
leaves, and waved her hand to a blossoming fuchsia.
"They
might have been lonesome while I was away," she explained. "And
now about the
Sunday school. I behaved well, just as you told me. Mrs.
Lynde was gone, but
I went right on myself. I went into the church, with
a lot of other little
girls, and I sat in the corner of a pew by the
window while the opening
exercises went on. Mr. Bell made an awfully
long prayer. I would have been
dreadfully tired before he got through
if I hadn't been sitting by that
window. But it looked right out on the
Lake of Shining Waters, so I just
gazed at that and imagined all sorts
of splendid things."
"You
shouldn't have done anything of the sort. You should have listened
to Mr.
Bell."
"But he wasn't talking to me," protested Anne. "He was talking to
God
and he didn't seem to be very much inter-ested in it, either. I
think
he thought God was too far off though. There was a long row of
white
birches hanging over the lake and the sunshine fell down
through
them, 'way, 'way down, deep into the water. Oh, Marilla, it was like
a
beautiful dream! It gave me a thrill and I just said, 'Thank you for
it,
God,' two or three times."
"Not out loud, I hope," said Marilla
anxiously.
"Oh, no, just under my breath. Well, Mr. Bell did get through
at last
and they told me to go into the classroom with Miss Rogerson's
class.
There were nine other girls in it. They all had puffed sleeves. I
tried
to imagine mine were puffed, too, but I couldn't. Why couldn't I? It
was
as easy as could be to imagine they were puffed when I was alone
in
the east gable, but it was awfully hard there among the others who
had
really truly puffs."
"You shouldn't have been thinking about your
sleeves in Sunday school.
You should have been attending to the lesson. I
hope you knew it."
"Oh, yes; and I answered a lot of questions. Miss
Rogerson asked ever so
many. I don't think it was fair for her to do all the
asking. There were
lots I wanted to ask her, but I didn't like to because I
didn't think
she was a kindred spirit. Then all the other little girls
recited a
paraphrase. She asked me if I knew any. I told her I didn't, but I
could
recite, 'The Dog at His Master's Grave' if she liked. That's in
the
Third Royal Reader. It isn't a really truly religious piece of
poetry,
but it's so sad and melancholy that it might as well be. She said
it
wouldn't do and she told me to learn the nineteenth paraphrase for
next
Sunday. I read it over in church afterwards and it's splendid. There
are
two lines in particular that just thrill me.
"'Quick as the
slaughtered squadrons fell
In Midian's evil day.'
"I don't know
what 'squadrons' means nor 'Midian,' either, but it sounds
SO tragical. I can
hardly wait until next Sunday to recite it.
I'll practice it all the week.
After Sunday school I asked Miss
Rogerson--because Mrs. Lynde was too far
away--to show me your pew.
I sat just as still as I could and the text was
Revelations, third
chapter, second and third verses. It was a very long text.
If I was a
minister I'd pick the short, snappy ones. The sermon was awfully
long,
too. I suppose the minister had to match it to the text. I didn't
think
he was a bit interesting. The trouble with him seems to be that
he
hasn't enough imagination. I didn't listen to him very much. I just
let
my thoughts run and I thought of the most surprising
things."
Marilla felt helplessly that all this should be sternly
reproved, but
she was hampered by the undeniable fact that some of the things
Anne had
said, especially about the minister's sermons and Mr. Bell's
prayers,
were what she herself had really thought deep down in her heart
for
years, but had never given expression to. It almost seemed to her
that
those secret, unuttered, critical thoughts had suddenly taken
visible
and accusing shape and form in the person of this outspoken morsel
of
neglected humanity.
CHAPTER XII. A Solemn Vow and
Promise
It was not until the next Friday that Marilla heard the story
of the
flower-wreathed hat. She came home from Mrs. Lynde's and called Anne
to
account.
"Anne, Mrs. Rachel says you went to church last Sunday
with your hat
rigged out ridiculous with roses and buttercups. What on earth
put you
up to such a caper? A pretty-looking object you must have
been!"
"Oh. I know pink and yellow aren't becoming to me," began
Anne.
"Becoming fiddlesticks! It was putting flowers on your hat at
all,
no matter what color they were, that was ridiculous. You are the
most
aggravating child!"
"I don't see why it's any more ridiculous to
wear flowers on your hat
than on your dress," protested Anne. "Lots of little
girls there had
bouquets pinned on their dresses. What's the
difference?"
Marilla was not to be drawn from the safe concrete into
dubious paths of
the abstract.
"Don't answer me back like that, Anne.
It was very silly of you to do
such a thing. Never let me catch you at such a
trick again. Mrs. Rachel
says she thought she would sink through the floor
when she saw you come
in all rigged out like that. She couldn't get near
enough to tell you
to take them off till it was too late. She says people
talked about it
something dreadful. Of course they would think I had no
better sense
than to let you go decked out like that."
"Oh, I'm so
sorry," said Anne, tears welling into her eyes. "I never
thought you'd mind.
The roses and buttercups were so sweet and pretty
I thought they'd look
lovely on my hat. Lots of the little girls had
artificial flowers on their
hats. I'm afraid I'm going to be a dreadful
trial to you. Maybe you'd better
send me back to the asylum. That would
be terrible; I don't think I could
endure it; most likely I would go
into consumption; I'm so thin as it is, you
see. But that would be
better than being a trial to you."
"Nonsense,"
said Marilla, vexed at herself for having made the child
cry. "I don't want
to send you back to the asylum, I'm sure. All I want
is that you should
behave like other little girls and not make yourself
ridiculous. Don't cry
any more. I've got some news for you. Diana Barry
came home this afternoon.
I'm going up to see if I can borrow a skirt
pattern from Mrs. Barry, and if
you like you can come with me and get
acquainted with Diana."
Anne
rose to her feet, with clasped hands, the tears still glistening on
her
cheeks; the dish towel she had been hemming slipped unheeded to
the
floor.
"Oh, Marilla, I'm frightened--now that it has come I'm
actually
frightened. What if she shouldn't like me! It would be the most
tragical
disappointment of my life."
"Now, don't get into a fluster.
And I do wish you wouldn't use such long
words. It sounds so funny in a
little girl. I guess Diana'll like you
well enough. It's her mother you've
got to reckon with. If she doesn't
like you it won't matter how much Diana
does. If she has heard about
your outburst to Mrs. Lynde and going to church
with buttercups round
your hat I don't know what she'll think of you. You
must be polite and
well behaved, and don't make any of your startling
speeches. For pity's
sake, if the child isn't actually
trembling!"
Anne WAS trembling. Her face was pale and tense.
"Oh,
Marilla, you'd be excited, too, if you were going to meet a little
girl you
hoped to be your bosom friend and whose mother mightn't like
you," she said
as she hastened to get her hat.
They went over to Orchard Slope by the
short cut across the brook and up
the firry hill grove. Mrs. Barry came to
the kitchen door in answer to
Marilla's knock. She was a tall black-eyed,
black-haired woman, with a
very resolute mouth. She had the reputation of
being very strict with
her children.
"How do you do, Marilla?" she
said cordially. "Come in. And this is the
little girl you have adopted, I
suppose?"
"Yes, this is Anne Shirley," said Marilla.
"Spelled with
an E," gasped Anne, who, tremulous and excited as she was,
was determined
there should be no misunderstanding on that important
point.
Mrs.
Barry, not hearing or not comprehending, merely shook hands and
said
kindly:
"How are you?"
"I am well in body although considerable
rumpled up in spirit, thank you
ma'am," said Anne gravely. Then aside to
Marilla in an audible whisper,
"There wasn't anything startling in that, was
there, Marilla?"
Diana was sitting on the sofa, reading a book which she
dropped when the
callers entered. She was a very pretty little girl, with her
mother's
black eyes and hair, and rosy cheeks, and the merry expression which
was
her inheritance from her father.
"This is my little girl Diana,"
said Mrs. Barry. "Diana, you might take
Anne out into the garden and show her
your flowers. It will be better
for you than straining your eyes over that
book. She reads entirely
too much--" this to Marilla as the little girls went
out--"and I can't
prevent her, for her father aids and abets her. She's
always poring over
a book. I'm glad she has the prospect of a
playmate--perhaps it will
take her more out-of-doors."
Outside in the
garden, which was full of mellow sunset light streaming
through the dark old
firs to the west of it, stood Anne and Diana,
gazing bashfully at each other
over a clump of gorgeous tiger lilies.
The Barry garden was a bowery
wilderness of flowers which would have
delighted Anne's heart at any time
less fraught with destiny. It was
encircled by huge old willows and tall
firs, beneath which flourished
flowers that loved the shade. Prim,
right-angled paths neatly bordered
with clamshells, intersected it like moist
red ribbons and in the beds
between old-fashioned flowers ran riot. There
were rosy bleeding-hearts
and great splendid crimson peonies; white, fragrant
narcissi and thorny,
sweet Scotch roses; pink and blue and white columbines
and lilac-tinted
Bouncing Bets; clumps of southernwood and ribbon grass and
mint; purple
Adam-and-Eve, daffodils, and masses of sweet clover white with
its
delicate, fragrant, feathery sprays; scarlet lightning that shot
its
fiery lances over prim white musk-flowers; a garden it was where
sunshine
lingered and bees hummed, and winds, beguiled into loitering,
purred and
rustled.
"Oh, Diana," said Anne at last, clasping her hands and speaking
almost
in a whisper, "oh, do you think you can like me a little--enough to
be
my bosom friend?"
Diana laughed. Diana always laughed before she
spoke.
"Why, I guess so," she said frankly. "I'm awfully glad you've come
to
live at Green Gables. It will be jolly to have somebody to play
with.
There isn't any other girl who lives near enough to play with, and
I've
no sisters big enough."
"Will you swear to be my friend forever
and ever?" demanded Anne
eagerly.
Diana looked shocked.
"Why
it's dreadfully wicked to swear," she said rebukingly.
"Oh no, not my
kind of swearing. There are two kinds, you know."
"I never heard of but
one kind," said Diana doubtfully.
"There really is another. Oh, it isn't
wicked at all. It just means
vowing and promising solemnly."
"Well, I
don't mind doing that," agreed Diana, relieved. "How do you
do
it?"
"We must join hands--so," said Anne gravely. "It ought to be
over
running water. We'll just imagine this path is running water.
I'll
repeat the oath first. I solemnly swear to be faithful to my
bosom
friend, Diana Barry, as long as the sun and moon shall endure. Now
you
say it and put my name in."
Diana repeated the "oath" with a laugh
fore and aft. Then she said:
"You're a queer girl, Anne. I heard before
that you were queer. But I
believe I'm going to like you real
well."
When Marilla and Anne went home Diana went with them as far as the
log
bridge. The two little girls walked with their arms about each
other.
At the brook they parted with many promises to spend the next
afternoon
together.
"Well, did you find Diana a kindred spirit?" asked
Marilla as they went
up through the garden of Green Gables.
"Oh yes,"
sighed Anne, blissfully unconscious of any sarcasm on
Marilla's part. "Oh
Marilla, I'm the happiest girl on Prince Edward
Island this very moment. I
assure you I'll say my prayers with a right
good-will tonight. Diana and I
are going to build a playhouse in Mr.
William Bell's birch grove tomorrow.
Can I have those broken pieces of
china that are out in the woodshed? Diana's
birthday is in February and
mine is in March. Don't you think that is a very
strange coincidence?
Diana is going to lend me a book to read. She says it's
perfectly
splendid and tremendously exciting. She's going to show me a place
back
in the woods where rice lilies grow. Don't you think Diana has got
very
soulful eyes? I wish I had soulful eyes. Diana is going to teach me
to
sing a song called 'Nelly in the Hazel Dell.' She's going to give me
a
picture to put up in my room; it's a perfectly beautiful picture,
she
says--a lovely lady in a pale blue silk dress. A sewing-machine
agent
gave it to her. I wish I had something to give Diana. I'm an inch
taller
than Diana, but she is ever so much fatter; she says she'd like to
be
thin because it's so much more graceful, but I'm afraid she only
said
it to soothe my feelings. We're going to the shore some day to
gather
shells. We have agreed to call the spring down by the log bridge
the
Dryad's Bubble. Isn't that a perfectly elegant name? I read a
story
once about a spring called that. A dryad is sort of a grown-up fairy,
I
think."
"Well, all I hope is you won't talk Diana to death," said
Marilla. "But
remember this in all your planning, Anne. You're not going to
play all
the time nor most of it. You'll have your work to do and it'll have
to
be done first."
Anne's cup of happiness was full, and Matthew
caused it to overflow. He
had just got home from a trip to the store at
Carmody, and he sheepishly
produced a small parcel from his pocket and handed
it to Anne, with a
deprecatory look at Marilla.
"I heard you say you
liked chocolate sweeties, so I got you some," he
said.
"Humph,"
sniffed Marilla. "It'll ruin her teeth and stomach. There,
there, child,
don't look so dismal. You can eat those, since Matthew
has gone and got them.
He'd better have brought you peppermints. They're
wholesomer. Don't sicken
yourself eating all them at once now."
"Oh, no, indeed, I won't," said
Anne eagerly. "I'll just eat one
tonight, Marilla. And I can give Diana half
of them, can't I? The
other half will taste twice as sweet to me if I give
some to her. It's
delightful to think I have something to give
her."
"I will say it for the child," said Marilla when Anne had gone
to
her gable, "she isn't stingy. I'm glad, for of all faults I
detest
stinginess in a child. Dear me, it's only three weeks since she
came,
and it seems as if she'd been here always. I can't imagine the
place
without her. Now, don't be looking I told-you-so, Matthew. That's
bad
enough in a woman, but it isn't to be endured in a man. I'm
perfectly
willing to own up that I'm glad I consented to keep the child and
that
I'm getting fond of her, but don't you rub it in, Matthew
Cuthbert."
CHAPTER XIII. The Delights of
Anticipation
"It's time Anne was in to do her sewing," said Marilla,
glancing at the
clock and then out into the yellow August afternoon where
everything
drowsed in the heat. "She stayed playing with Diana more than half
an
hour more'n I gave her leave to; and now she's perched out there on
the
woodpile talking to Matthew, nineteen to the dozen, when she knows
perfectly
well she ought to be at her work. And of course he's listening
to her like a
perfect ninny. I never saw such an infatuated man.
The more she talks and the
odder the things she says, the more he's
delighted evidently. Anne Shirley,
you come right in here this minute,
do you hear me!"
A series of
staccato taps on the west window brought Anne flying in from
the yard, eyes
shining, cheeks faintly flushed with pink, unbraided hair
streaming behind
her in a torrent of brightness.
"Oh, Marilla," she exclaimed
breathlessly, "there's going to be a
Sunday-school picnic next week--in Mr.
Harmon Andrews's field, right
near the lake of Shining Waters. And Mrs.
Superintendent Bell and Mrs.
Rachel Lynde are going to make ice cream--think
of it, Marilla--ICE
CREAM! And, oh, Marilla, can I go to it?"
"Just
look at the clock, if you please, Anne. What time did I tell you
to come
in?"
"Two o'clock--but isn't it splendid about the picnic, Marilla?
Please
can I go? Oh, I've never been to a picnic--I've dreamed of picnics,
but
I've never--"
"Yes, I told you to come at two o'clock. And it's a
quarter to three.
I'd like to know why you didn't obey me,
Anne."
"Why, I meant to, Marilla, as much as could be. But you have no
idea
how fascinating Idlewild is. And then, of course, I had to tell
Matthew
about the picnic. Matthew is such a sympathetic listener. Please can
I
go?"
"You'll have to learn to resist the fascination
of
Idle-whatever-you-call-it. When I tell you to come in at a certain
time
I mean that time and not half an hour later. And you needn't stop
to
discourse with sympathetic listeners on your way, either. As for
the
picnic, of course you can go. You're a Sunday-school scholar, and
it's
not likely I'd refuse to let you go when all the other little girls
are
going."
"But--but," faltered Anne, "Diana says that everybody must
take a basket
of things to eat. I can't cook, as you know, Marilla,
and--and--I don't
mind going to a picnic without puffed sleeves so much, but
I'd feel
terribly humiliated if I had to go without a basket. It's been
preying
on my mind ever since Diana told me."
"Well, it needn't prey
any longer. I'll bake you a basket."
"Oh, you dear good Marilla. Oh, you
are so kind to me. Oh, I'm so much
obliged to you."
Getting through
with her "ohs" Anne cast herself into Marilla's arms and
rapturously kissed
her sallow cheek. It was the first time in her whole
life that childish lips
had voluntarily touched Marilla's face. Again
that sudden sensation of
startling sweetness thrilled her. She was
secretly vastly pleased at Anne's
impulsive caress, which was probably
the reason why she said brusquely: |
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