“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 ought
all to overlook Mr. Harrison’s peculiarities
for her sake and try to make her 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 and he’s seemed a lot
better these past few days, but I never like to be
long away from him. I hear Gilbert Blythe has
resigned from White Sands. He’ll be off
to college in the fall, I suppose.”
Mrs. Rachel looked sharply at Anne, but Anne was bending
over a sleepy Davy nodding on the sofa and nothing
was to be read in her face. She carried Davy
away, her oval girlish cheek pressed against his curly
yellow head. As they went up the stairs Davy flung
a tired 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 and showed it to Jennie Sloane,
“’Roses
red and vi’lets blue,
Sugar’s sweet,
and so are you”
and that ’spresses my feelings for you ezackly,
Anne.”
Around the Bend
Thomas Lynde faded out of life as quietly and unobtrusively
as he had lived it. His wife was a tender, patient,
unwearied nurse. Sometimes Rachel had been a
little hard on her Thomas in health, when his slowness
or meekness had provoked her; but when he became ill
no voice could be lower, no hand more gently skillful,
no vigil more uncomplaining.
“You’ve been a good wife to me, Rachel,”
he once said simply, when she was sitting by him in
the dusk, holding his thin, blanched old 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, just like their mother.
A good mother . . . a good woman . . . .”
He had fallen asleep then, and the next morning, just
as the white dawn was creeping up over the pointed
firs in the hollow, Marilla went softly into the east
gable and wakened Anne.
“Anne, Thomas Lynde is gone . . . their hired
boy just brought the word. I’m going right
down to Rachel.”
On the day after Thomas Lynde’s funeral Marilla
went about Green Gables with a strangely preoccupied
air. Occasionally she looked at Anne, seemed
on the 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
school exercises.
“How is Mrs. Lynde tonight?” asked the
latter.
“She’s feeling calmer and more composed,”
answered Marilla, sitting down on Anne’s bed
. . . a proceeding which betokened some unusual mental
excitement, for in Marilla’s code of household
ethics to sit on a bed after it was made up was an
unpardonable offense. “But she’s very
lonely. Eliza had to go home today . . . her son
isn’t well and she felt she couldn’t stay
any longer.”
