Reader--I was only in the Fourth--but the big girls used
to lend me
theirs to read."
"Were those women--Mrs. Thomas and Mrs. Hammond--good to
you?" asked Marilla, looking at Anne out of the corner
of her eye.
"O-o-o-h," faltered Anne. Her
sensitive little face
suddenly flushed
scarlet and
embarrassment sat on her brow.
"Oh, they MEANT to be--I know they meant to be just as
good and kind as possible. And when people mean to be
good to you, you don't mind very much when they're not
quite--always. They had a good deal to worry them, you
know. It's very
trying to have a
drunken husband, you see;
and it must be very
trying to have twins three times in
succession, don't you think? But I feel sure they meant
to be good to me."
Marilla asked no more questions. Anne gave herself up
to a silent
rapture over the shore road and Marilla guided
the sorrel abstractedly while she pondered deeply. Pity
was suddenly
stirring in her heart for the child. What a
starved, unloved life she had had--a life of
drudgery and
poverty and
neglect; for Marilla was
shrewd enough to
read between the lines of Anne's history and
divine the
truth. No wonder she had been so
delighted at the prospect
of a real home. It was a pity she had to be sent back.
What if she, Marilla, should
indulge Matthew's unaccountable
whim and let her stay? He was set on it; and the child
seemed a nice, teachable little thing.
"She's got too much to say," thought Marilla, "but she
might be trained out of that. And there's nothing rude or
slangy in what she does say. She's ladylike. It's likely
her people were nice folks."
The shore road was "woodsy and wild and lonesome."
On the right hand, scrub firs, their spirits quite unbroken
by long years of tussle with the gulf winds, grew thickly.
On the left were the steep red
sandstone cliffs, so near the
track in places that a mare of less steadiness than the
sorrel might have tried the nerves of the people behind
her. Down at the base of the cliffs were heaps of surf-worn
rocks or little sandy coves inlaid with pebbles as with
ocean jewels; beyond lay the sea, shimmering and blue,
and over it soared the gulls, their pinions flashing silvery
in the sunlight.
"Isn't the sea wonderful?" said Anne, rousing from a
long, wide-eyed silence. "Once, when I lived in Marysville,
Mr. Thomas hired an express wagon and took us all to
spend the day at the shore ten miles away. I enjoyed
every moment of that day, even if I had to look after the
children all the time. I lived it over in happy dreams for
years. But this shore is nicer than the Marysville shore.
Aren't those gulls splendid? Would you like to be a gull?
I think I would--that is, if I couldn't be a human girl.
Don't you think it would be nice to wake up at
sunrise and
swoop down over the water and away out over that lovely
blue all day; and then at night to fly back to one's nest?
Oh, I can just imagine myself doing it. What big house is
that just ahead, please?"
"That's the White Sands Hotel. Mr. Kirke runs it, but
the season hasn't begun yet. There are heaps of Americans
come there for the summer. They think this shore is just
about right."
"I was afraid it might be Mrs. Spencer's place," said
Anne mournfully. "I don't want to get there. Somehow, it
will seem like the end of everything."
CHAPTER VI
Marilla Makes Up Her Mind
Get there they did, however, in due season. Mrs. Spencer
lived in a big yellow house at White Sands Cove, and she
came to the door with surprise and
welcome mingled on
her
benevolent face.
"Dear, dear," she exclaimed, "you're the last folks I was
looking for today, but I'm real glad to see you. You'll put
your horse in? And how are you, Anne?"
"I'm as well as can be expected, thank you," said Anne
smilelessly. A
blight seemed to have descended on her.
"I suppose we'll stay a little while to rest the mare,"
said Marilla, "but I promised Matthew I'd be home early.
The fact is, Mrs. Spencer, there's been a queer mistake
somewhere, and I've come over to see where it is. We
send word, Matthew and I, for you to bring us a boy from
the
asylum. We told your brother Robert to tell you we
wanted a boy ten or eleven years old."
"Marilla Cuthbert, you don't say so!" said Mrs. Spencer
in
distress. "Why, Robert sent word down by his
daughter Nancy and she said you wanted a girl--didn't
she Flora Jane?" appealing to her daughter who had come
out to the steps.
"She certainly did, Miss Cuthbert," corroborated Flora
Jane earnestly.
I'm
dreadful sorry," said Mrs. Spencer. "It's too bad;
but it certainly wasn't my fault, you see, Miss Cuthbert.
I did the best I could and I thought I was following your
instructions. Nancy is a terrible flighty thing. I've
often had to scold her well for her heedlessness."
"It was our own fault," said Marilla resignedly. "We
should have come to you ourselves and not left an important
message to be passed along by word of mouth in that
fashion. Anyhow, the mistake has been made and the only
thing to do is to set it right. Can we send the child
back to the
asylum? I suppose they'll take her back,
won't they?"
"I suppose so," said Mrs. Spencer
thoughtfully, "but I
don't think it will be necessary to send her back. Mrs.
Peter Blewett was up here
yesterday, and she was
sayingto me how much she wished she'd sent by me for a little
girl to help her. Mrs. Peter has a large family, you know,
and she finds it hard to get help. Anne will be the very
girl for you. I call it
positively providential."
Marilla did not look as if she thought Providence had
much to do with the matter. Here was an unexpectedly
good chance to get this un
welcomeorphan off her hands,
and she did not even feel
grateful for it.
She knew Mrs. Peter Blewett only by sight as a small,
shrewish-faced woman without an ounce of superfluous
flesh on her bones. But she had heard of her. "A terrible
worker and driver," Mrs. Peter was said to be; and discharged
servant girls told fearsome tales of her
temper and stinginess,
and her family of pert, quarrelsome children. Marilla felt a
qualm of
conscience at the thought of handing Anne over to her
tender mercies.
"Well, I'll go in and we'll talk the matter over," she said.
"And if there isn't Mrs. Peter coming up the lane this
blessed minute!" exclaimed Mrs. Spencer, bustling her
guests through the hall into the
parlor, where a deadly
chill struck on them as if the air had been strained so long
through dark green, closely drawn blinds that it had lost
every
particle of
warmth it had ever possessed. "That is
real lucky, for we can settle the matter right away. Take
the
armchair, Miss Cuthbert. Anne, you sit here on the
ottoman and don't wiggle. Let me take your hats. Flora
Jane, go out and put the
kettle on. Good afternoon, Mrs.
Blewett. We were just
saying how
fortunate it was you
happened along. Let me introduce you two ladies. Mrs.
Blewett, Miss Cuthbert. Please excuse me for just a moment.
I forgot to tell Flora Jane to take the buns out of the oven."
Mrs. Spencer whisked away, after pulling up the blinds.
Anne sitting mutely on the ottoman, with her hands
clasped
tightly in her lap, stared at Mrs Blewett as one
fascinated. Was she to be given into the keeping of this
sharp-faced, sharp-eyed woman? She felt a lump coming up in
her
throat and her eyes smarted
painfully. She was beginning
to be afraid she couldn't keep the tears back when Mrs. Spencer
returned, flushed and
beaming, quite
capable of
taking any and
every difficulty,
physical,
mental or
spiritual, into
consideration and settling it out of hand.
"It seems there's been a mistake about this little girl,
Mrs. Blewett," she said. "I was under the
impression that
Mr. and Miss Cuthbert wanted a little girl to adopt. I was
certainly told so. But it seems it was a boy they wanted.
So if you're still of the same mind you were
yesterday, I
think she'll be just the thing for you."
Mrs. Blewett darted her eyes over Anne from head to foot.
"How old are you and what's your name?" she demanded.
"Anne Shirley," faltered the shrinking child, not daring
to make any stipulations
regarding the
spelling thereof,
"and I'm eleven years old."
"Humph! You don't look as if there was much to you.
But you're wiry. I don't know but the wiry ones are the
best after all. Well, if I take you you'll have to be a
good girl, you know--good and smart and
respectful. I'll
expect you to earn your keep, and no mistake about that.
Yes, I suppose I might as well take her off your hands, Miss
Cuthbert. The baby's awful fractious, and I'm clean worn out
attending to him. If you like I can take her right home now."
Marilla looked at Anne and softened at sight of the
child's pale face with its look of mute misery--the misery
of a
helpless little creature who finds itself once more
caught in the trap from which it had escaped. Marilla felt
an
uncomfortableconviction that, if she denied the appeal
of that look, it would haunt her to her dying day. More-
over, she did not fancy Mrs. Blewett. To hand a
sensitive,
"highstrung" child over to such a woman! No, she could
not take the
responsibility of doing that!
"Well, I don't know," she said slowly. "I didn't say that
Matthew and I had
absolutelydecided that we wouldn't
keep her. In fact I may say that Matthew is disposed to
keep her. I just came over to find out how the mistake had
occurred. I think I'd better take her home again and talk
it over with Matthew. I feel that I oughtn't to decide on
anything without consulting him. If we make up our mind
not to keep her we'll bring or send her over to you
tomorrow night. If we don't you may know that she is
going to stay with us. Will that suit you, Mrs. Blewett?"
"I suppose it'll have to," said Mrs. Blewett ungraciously.
During Marilla's speech a
sunrise had been dawning on
Anne's face. First the look of
despair faded out; then came
a faint flush of hope; here eyes grew deep and bright as
morning stars. The child was quite transfigured; and, a
moment later, when Mrs. Spencer and Mrs. Blewett went
out in quest of a
recipe the latter had come to borrow she
sprang up and flew across the room to Marilla.
"Oh, Miss Cuthbert, did you really say that perhaps you would
let me stay at Green Gables?" she said, in a
breathless whisper,
as if
speaking aloud might
shatter the
glorious possibility.
"Did you really say it? Or did I only imagine that you did?"
"I think you'd better learn to control that
imagination of
yours, Anne, if you can't
distinguish between what is real
and what isn't," said Marilla crossly. "Yes, you did hear
me say just that and no more. It isn't
decided yet and
perhaps we will conclude to let Mrs. Blewett take you after
all. She certainly needs you much more than I do."
"I'd rather go back to the
asylum than go to live with her," said