She had thought the study a very noble room until she had seen the dining-room, but now she wished for another look at the pictures there and the queer clock, and the strange, grand things on the sideboard.  The old-fashioned comfort of the house was perfect splendor to the child, and she went about on tiptoe up stairs and down, looking in at the open doors, while she lingered wistfully before the closed ones.  She wondered at the great bedsteads with their high posts and dimity hangings, and at the carpets, and the worthy Marilla watched her for a moment as she stood on the threshold of the doctor’s own room.  The child’s quick ear caught the rustle of the housekeeper’s Sunday gown; she whispered with shining eyes that she thought the house was beautiful.  Did Marilla live here all the time?

“Bless you, yes!” replied Marilla, not without pride, though she added that nobody knew what a sight of care it was.

“I suppose y’r aunt in Dunport lives a good deal better than this;” but the child only looked puzzled and did not answer, while the housekeeper hurried away to the afternoon meeting, for which the bell was already tolling.

The doctor slept on in the shaded study, and after Nan had grown tired of walking softly about the house, she found her way into the garden.  After all, there was nothing better than being out of doors, and the apple-trees seemed most familiar and friendly, though she pitied them for being placed so near each other.  She discovered a bench under a trellis where a grape-vine and a clematis were tangled together, and here she sat down to spend a little time before the doctor should call her.  She wished she could stay longer than that one short afternoon; perhaps some time or other the doctor would invite her again.  But what could Marilla have meant about her aunt?  She had no aunts except Mrs. Jake and Mrs. Martin; Marilla must well know that their houses were not like Dr. Leslie’s; and little Nan built herself a fine castle in Spain, of which this unknown aunt was queen.  Certainly her grandmother had now and then let fall a word about “your father’s folks”—­by and by they might come to see her!

The grape leaves were waving about in the warm wind, and they made a flickering light and shade upon the ground.  The clematis was in bloom, and its soft white plumes fringed the archway of the lattice work.  As the child looked down the garden walk it seemed very long and very beautiful to her.  Her grandmother’s flower-garden had been constantly encroached upon by the turf which surrounded it, until the snowberry bush, the London pride, the tiger-lilies, and the crimson phlox were like a besieged garrison.