L. M. Montgomery Quotes

“I’m not a bit changed--not really. I’m only just pruned down and branched out. The real me--back here--is just the same.”

“When I left Queen’s my future seemed to stretch out before me like a straight road. I thought I could see along it for many a milestone. Now there is a bend in it. I don’t know what lies around the bend, but I’m going to believe that the best does. It has a fascination of its own, that bend, Marilla.”

“Why must people kneel down to pray? If I really wanted to pray I’ll tell you what I’d do. I’d go out into a great big field all alone or in the deep, deep woods and I’d look up into the sky—up—up—up—into that lovely blue sky that looks as if there was no end to its blueness. And then I’d just feel a prayer.”

“But have you ever noticed one encouraging thing about me, Marilla? I never make the same mistake twice.” “I don’t know as that’s much benefit when you’re always making new ones.”

“But if you call me Anne, please call me Anne spelled with an E.”

“It’s all very well to read about sorrows and imagine yourself living through them heroically, but it’s not so nice when you really come to have them, is it?”

“You’d find it easier to be bad than good if you had red hair... People who haven’t red hair don’t know what trouble is.”

“For we pay a price for everything we get or take in this world; and although ambitions are well worth having, they are not to be cheaply won, but exact their dues of work and self-denial, anxiety and discouragement.”

“It’s nicer to think dear, pretty thoughts and keep them in one’s heart, like treasures. I don’t like to have them laughed at or wondered over.”

“Look at that sea, girls--all silver and shadow and vision of things not seen. We couldn’t enjoy its loveliness any more if we had millions of dollars and ropes of diamonds.”

“I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”

“Matthew, much to his own surprise, was enjoying himself. Like most quiet folks he liked talkative people when they were willing to do the talking themselves and did not expect him to keep up his end of it.”

“I’ve done my best, and I begin to understand what is meant by ‘the joy of strife’. Next to trying and winning, the best thing is trying and failing.”

“Oh, it’s delightful to have ambitions. I’m so glad I have such a lot. And there never seems to be any end to them-- that’s the best of it. Just as soon as you attain to one ambition you see another one glittering higher up still. It does make life so interesting.”

“‘Dear old world’, she murmured, ‘you are very lovely, and I am glad to be alive in you.‘”

“The world calls them its singers and poets and artists and storytellers; but they are just people who have never forgotten the way to fairyland.”

“It’s delightful when your imaginations come true, isn’t it?”

“All things great are wound up with all things little.”

“My life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes.”

“It is ever so much easier to be good if your clothes are fashionable.”

“Don’t you just love poetry that gives you a crinkly feeling up and down your back?”

“People laugh at me because I use big words. But if you have big ideas, you have to use big words to express them, haven’t you?”

“It’s so easy to be wicked without knowing it, isn’t it?”

“Which would you rather be if you had the choice--divinely beautiful or dazzlingly clever or angelically good?”

“...because when you are imagining, you might as well imagine something worth while.”

“There’s such a lot of different Annes in me. I sometimes think that is why I’m such a troublesome person. If I was just the one Anne it would be ever so much more comfortable, but then it wouldn’t be half so interesting.”

“That’s the worst of growing up, and I’m beginning to realize it. The things you wanted so much when you were a child don’t seem half so wonderful to you when you get them.”

“We ought always to try to influence other people for good.”

“Do you think amethysts can be the souls of good violets?”

“Those who knew Anne best felt, without realizing that they felt it, that her greatest attraction was the aura of possibility surrounding her... the power of future development that was in her. She seemed to walk in an atmosphere of things about to happen.”

“That is one good thing about this world...there are always sure to be more springs.”

“I’m really a very happy, contented little person in spite of my broken heart.”

“While Anne was not beautiful in any strictly defined sense of the word she possessed a certain evasive charm and distinction of appearance that left beholders with a pleasurable sense of satisfaction in that softly rounded girlhood of hers, with all its strongly felt potentialities.”

″‘But I’d rather look like you than be pretty,’ she told Anne sincerely. Anne laughed, sipped honey from the tribute, and cast away the sting.”

“Perhaps... perhaps... love unfolded naturally out of a beautiful friendship, as a golden-hearted rose slipping from its green sheath.”

“It’s really splendid to imagine you are a queen. You have all the fun of it without any of the inconveniences and you can stop being queen whenever you want to, which you couldn’t in real life.”

″‘Having adventures comes natural to some people’, said Anne serenely. ‘You just have a gift for them or you haven’t.‘”

“When I think something nice is going to happen I seem to fly right up on the wings of anticipation; and then the first thing I realize I drop down to earth with a thud. But really, Marilla, the flying part is glorious as long as it lasts... it’s like soaring through a sunset. I think it almost pays for the thud.”

″‘That’s a lovely idea, Diana,’ said Anne enthusiastically. ‘Living so that you beautify your name, even if it wasn’t beautiful to begin with... making it stand in people’s thoughts for something so lovely and pleasant that they never think of it by itself.‘”

″... I’m so thankful for friendship. It beautifies life so much.”

“I think people make their names nice or ugly just by what they are themselves.”

“Well, one can’t get over the habit of being a little girl all at once.”

“Perhaps, after all, romance did not come into one’s life with pomp and blare, like a gay knight riding down; perhaps it crept to one’s side like an old friend through quiet ways...”

″... but wouldn’t it have been more beautiful still, Anne, if there had been no separation or misunderstanding . . . if they had come hand in hand all the way through life, with no memories behind them but those which belonged to each other.”

“If a kiss could be seen I think it would look like a violet.”

“Well, we all make mistakes, dear, so just put it behind you. We should regret our mistakes and learn from them, but never carry them forward into the future with us.”

“I believe the nicest and sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens but just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a string.”

“Isn’t it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad to be alive--it’s such an interesting world. It wouldn’t be half so interesting if we know all about everything, would it? There’d be no scope for imagination then, would there? But am I talking too much? People are always telling me I do. Would you rather I didn’t talk? If you say so I’ll stop. I can stop when I make up my mind to it, although it’s difficult.”

″‘I think,’ concluded Anne, hitting on a very vital truth, ‘that we always love best the people who need us.‘”

“I’m just tired of everything... even of the echoes. There is nothing in my life but echoes... echoes of lost hopes and dreams and joys. They’re beautiful and mocking.”

“I read in a book once that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but I’ve never been able to believe it. I don’t believe a rose WOULD be as nice if it was called a thistle or a skunk cabbage.”

“I know it is just plain red, and it breaks my heart. It will be my life long sorrow.”

“Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It’s splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world.”

“But really, Marilla, one can’t stay sad very long in such an interesting world, can one?”

“It’s been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy things if you make up your mind firmly that you will.”

“Oh- beauty- Emily shivered with the pure ecstasy of it. She loved it- it filled her being tonight as never before.”

“It was a lovely afternoon - such an afternoon as only September can produce when summer has stolen back for one more day of dream and glamour.”

“No one can be free who has a thousand ancestors.”

“Well, it all comes to this, there’s no use trying to live in other people’s opinions. The only thing to do is to live in our own.”

“Don’t let them make anything of you but yourself, that’s all.”

“The world is always young again for just a few moments at the dawn.”

“Fear is a vile thing, and is at the bottom of almost every wrong and hatred of the world.”

“Such moments come rarely in any life, but when they do come they are inexpressibly wonderful - as if the finite were for a second infinity - as if humanity were for a space uplifted into divinity - as if all ugliness had vanished, leaving only flawless beauty.”

“Lovely thoughts came flying to meet me like birds. They weren’t my thoughts. I couldn’t think anything half so exquisite. They came from somewhere.”

″‘The boys like me as a pal but I don’t believe anyone will ever really fall in love with me.’ ‘Nonsense,’ said Emily reassuringly. ‘Nine out of ten men will fall in love with you.’ ‘But it will be the tenth I’ll want,’ persisted Ilse gloomily.”

“At life’s banquet of success I may not be the guest of honor, but I’ll be among those present.”

Matthew dreaded all women except Marilla and Mrs. Rachel; he had an uncomfortable feeling that the mysterious creatures were secretly laughing at him. He may have been quite right in thinking so, for he was an odd-looking personage, with an ungainly figure and long iron-gray hair that touched his stooping shoulders, and a full, soft brown beard which he had worn ever since he was twenty.

Thomas Lynde—a meek little man whom Avonlea people called “Rachel Lynde’s husband”—was sowing his late turnip seed on the hill field beyond the barn; and Matthew Cuthbert ought to have been sowing his on the big red brook field away over by Green Gables.

“I’m sorry for that poor young one and no mistake. Matthew and Marilla don’t know anything about children and they’ll expect him to be wiser and steadier that his own grandfather, if so be’s he ever had a grandfather, which is doubtful.”

“I wouldn’t be in that orphan’s shoes for anything. My, but I pity him, that’s what.”

She was sitting there waiting for something or somebody and, since sitting and waiting was the only thing to do just then, she sat and waited with all her might and main.

There are plenty of people in Avonlea and out of it, who can attend closely to their neighbor’s business by dint of neglecting their own; but Mrs. Rachel Lynde was one of those capable creatures who can manage their own concerns and those of other folks into the bargain.

Matthew so rarely went from home that it must be something pressing and unusual which was taking him; he was the shyest man alive and hated to have to go among strangers or to any place where he might have to talk.

She looked like a woman of narrow experience and rigid conscience, which she was; but there was a saving something about her mouth which, if it had been ever so slightly developed, might have been considered indicative of a sense of humor.

Something that for lack of any other name might be called friendship existed and always had existed between Marilla Cuthbert and Mrs. Rachel, in spite of—or perhaps because of—their dissimilarity.

Mrs. Rachel felt that she had received a severe mental jolt. She thought in exclamation points. A boy! Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert of all people adopting a boy! From an orphan asylum! Well, the world was certainly turning upside down! She would be surprised at nothing after this! Nothing!

“Guess there’s some mistake,” he said. “Mrs. Spencer came off the train with that girl and gave her into my charge. Said you and your sister were adopting her from an orphan asylum and that you would be along for her presently. That’s all I know about it—and I haven’t got any more orphans concealed hereabouts.”

“Well, you’d better question the girl,” said the station-master carelessly. “I dare say she’ll be able to explain—she’s got a tongue of her own, that’s certain.”

He walked jauntily away, being hungry, and the unfortunate Matthew was left to do that which was harder for him than bearding a lion in its den—walk up to a girl—a strange girl—an orphan girl—and demand of her why she wasn’t a boy.

She wore a faded brown sailor hat and beneath the hat, extending down her back, were two braids of very thick, decidedly red hair. Her face was small, white and thin, also much freckled; her mouth was large and so were her eyes, which looked green in some lights and moods and gray in others.

So far, the ordinary observer; an extraordinary observer might have seen that the chin was very pointed and pronounced; that the big eyes were full of spirit and vivacity; that the mouth was sweet-lipped and expressive; that the forehead was broad and full; in short, our discerning extraordinary observer might have concluded that no commonplace soul inhabited the body of this stray woman-child of whom shy Matthew Cuthbert was so ludicrously afraid.

“Oh, it seems so wonderful that I’m going to live with you and belong to you. I’ve never belonged to anybody—not really.”

I don’t ever expect to be a bride myself. I’m so homely nobody will ever want to marry me—unless it might be a foreign missionary. I suppose a foreign missionary mightn’t be very particular.

Women were bad enough in all conscience, but little girls were worse. He detested the way they had of sidling past him timidly, with sidewise glances, as if they expected him to gobble them up at a mouthful if they ventured to say a word. That was the Avonlea type of well-bred little girl. But this freckled witch was very different, and although he found it rather difficult for his slower intelligence to keep up with her brisk mental processes he thought that he “kind of liked her chatter.”

It’s such a relief to talk when one wants to and not be told that children should be seen and not heard.

“I can’t feel exactly perfectly happy because—well, what color would you call this?” She twitched one of her long glossy braids over her thin shoulder and held it up before Matthew’s eyes. Matthew was not used to deciding on the tints of ladies’ tresses, but in this case there couldn’t be much doubt. “It’s red, ain’t it?” he said.

Now you see why I can’t be perfectly happy. Nobody could who has red hair.

“Have you ever imagined what it must feel like to be divinely beautiful?”

“Oh, it was wonderful—wonderful. It’s the first thing I ever saw that couldn’t be improved upon by imagination. It just satisfies me here”—she put one hand on her breast—“it made a queer funny ache and yet it was a pleasant ache. Did you ever have an ache like that, Mr. Cuthbert?”

But I’m glad to think of getting home. You see, I’ve never had a real home since I can remember. It gives me that pleasant ache again just to think of coming to a really truly home.

“I shall call it—let me see—the Lake of Shining Waters. Yes, that is the right name for it. I know because of the thrill. When I hit on a name that suits exactly it gives me a thrill.”

Oh, here we are at the bridge. I’m going to shut my eyes tight. I’m always afraid going over bridges. I can’t help imagining that perhaps just as we get to the middle, they’ll crumple up like a jack-knife and nip us. So I shut my eyes. But I always have to open them for all when I think we’re getting near the middle. Because, you see, if the bridge did crumble I’d want to see it crumble. What a jolly rumble it makes! I always like the rumble part of it.

During this dialogue the child had remained silent, her eyes roving from one to the other, all the animation fading out of her face. Suddenly she seemed to grasp the full meaning of what had been said. Dropping her precious carpet-bag she sprang forward a step and clasped her hands. “You don’t want me!” she cried. “You don’t want me because I’m not a boy!”

“Oh, it makes such a difference. It looks so much nicer. When you hear a name pronounced can’t you always see it in your mind, just as if it was printed out? I can; and A-n-n looks dreadful, but A-n-n-e looks so much more distinguished. If you’ll only call me Anne spelled with an E I shall try to reconcile myself to not being called Cordelia.”

“Good night,” she said, a little awkwardly, but not unkindly. Anne’s white face and big eyes appeared over the bedclothes with a startling suddenness. “How can you call it a good night when you know it must be the very worst night I’ve ever had?” she said reproachfully.

“Well now, she’s a real interesting little thing,” persisted Matthew. “You should have heard her talk coming from the station.”

“Oh, she can talk fast enough. I saw that at once. It’s nothing in her favour, either. I don’t like children who have so much to say. I don’t want an orphan girl and if I did she isn’t the style I’d pick out. There’s something I don’t understand about her.”

Oh, wasn’t it beautiful? Wasn’t it a lovely place? Suppose she wasn’t really going to stay here! She would imagine she was. There was scope for imagination here.

That was Matthew’s way—take a whim into his head and cling to it with the most amazing silent persistency—a persistency ten times more potent and effectual in its very silence than if he had talked it out.

There is no use in loving things if you have to be torn from them, is there? And it’s so hard to keep from loving things, isn’t it?

“Avonlea is a lovely name. It just sounds like music.”

“It’s five miles; and as you’re evidently bent on talking you might as well talk to some purpose by telling me what you know about ourself.” “Oh, what I know about myself isn’t really worth telling,” said Anne eagerly. “If you’ll only let me tell you what I imagine about myself you’ll think it ever so much more interesting.”

“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.”

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.

When he thought of that rapt light being quenched in her eyes he had an uncomfortable feeling that he was going to assist at murdering something—much the same feeling that came over him when he had to kill a lamb or calf or any other innocent little creature.

“Oh, this is the most tragical thing that ever happened to me!”

“The world doesn’t seem such a howling wilderness as it did last night. I’m so glad it’s a sunshiny morning.”

“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.

Marilla came briskly forward as Matthew opened the door. But when her eyes fell on the odd little figure in the stiff, ugly dress, with the long braids of red hair and the eager, luminous eyes, she stopped short in amazement. “Matthew Cuthbert, who’s that?” she ejaculated. “Where is the boy?” “There wasn’t any boy,” said Matthew wretchedly. “There was only her.”

Nobody ever did want me. I might have known it was all too beautiful to last. I might have known nobody really did want me. Oh, what shall I do? I’m going to burst into tears!

Something like a reluctant smile, rather rusty from long disuse, mellowed Marilla’s grim expression.

“Will you please call me Cordelia?” she said eagerly. “Call you Cordelia? Is that your name?” “No-o-o, it’s not exactly my name, but I would love to be called Cordelia. It’s such a perfectly elegant name.”

“Did Mrs. Spencer bring anybody over besides you?” continued Marilla when Matthew had gone out. “She brought Lily Jones for herself. Lily is only five years old and she is very beautiful and had nut-brown hair. If I was very beautiful and had nut-brown hair would you keep me?” “No. We want a boy to help Matthew on the farm. A girl would be of no use to us.”

“You’re not eating anything,” said Marilla sharply, eying her as if it were a serious shortcoming. Anne sighed. “I can’t. I’m in the depths of despair.”

There is never enough to go around in an asylum, so things are always skimpy—at least in a poor asylum like ours.

I hate skimpy night-dresses. But one can dream just as well in them as in lovely trailing ones, with frills around the neck, that’s one consolation.

Matthew was smoking—a sure sign of perturbation of mind. He seldom smoked, for Marilla set her face against it as a filthy habit; but at certain times and seasons he felt driven to it and them Marilla winked at the practice, realizing that a mere man must have some vent for his emotions.

“What good would she be to us?” “We might be some good to her,” said Matthew suddenly and unexpectedly.

Don’t you feel as if you just loved the world on a morning like this?

“I don’t feel as if I wanted any more children to look after than I’ve got at present. You’re problem enough in all conscience. What’s to be done with you I don’t know. Matthew is a most ridiculous man.”

“Oh, I like things to have handles even if they are only geraniums. It makes them seem more like people. How do you know but that it hurts a geranium’s feelings just to be called a geranium and nothing else? You wouldn’t like to be called nothing but a woman all the time.”

There is nothing more aggravating than a man who won’t talk back—unless it is a woman who won’t.

“Redheaded people can’t wear pink, not even in imagination.”

“No, I don’t want any of your imaginings. Just you stick to bald facts. Begin at the beginning. Where were you born and how old are you?” “I was eleven last March,” said Anne, resigning herself to bald facts with a little sigh. “And I was born in Bolingbroke, Nova Scotia.”

“I guess it doesn’t matter what a person’s name is as long as he behaves himself,” said Marilla, feeling herself called upon to inculcate a good and useful moral.

“It was a very lonesome place. I’m sure I could never have lived there if I hadn’t had an imagination.”

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 uncomfortable conviction that, if she denied the appeal of that look, it would haunt her to her dying day.

“I wouldn’t give a dog I liked to that Blewett woman,” said Matthew with unusual vim.”

“Marilla Cuthbert, you’re fairly in for it. Did you ever suppose you’d see the day when you’d be adopting an orphan girl? It’s surprising enough; but not so surprising as that Matthew should be at the bottom of it, him that always seemed to have such a mortal dread of little girls. Anyhow, we’ve decided on the experiment and goodness only knows what will come of it.”

“God always wants little girls to say their prayers.”

Evidently she did not like talking about her experiences in a world that had not wanted her.

“I’ve never brought up a child, especially a girl, and I dare say I’ll make a terrible mess of it. But I’ll do my best. So far as I’m concerned, Matthew, she may stay.” Matthew’s shy face was a glow of delight.

“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.”

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; her eyes grew deep and bright as morning stars.

Mrs. Thomas told me that God made my hair red on purpose, and I’ve never cared about Him since.

“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 kind of think she’s one of the sort you can do anything with if you only get her to love you.”

“You’re old enough to pray for yourself, Anne,” she said finally. “Just thank God for your blessings and ask Him humbly for the things you want.”

“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.”

“I call it positively providential.”

“Don’t you know who God is, Anne?” ”‘God is a spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable, in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth,” responded Anne promptly and glibly.

“So you do know something then, thank goodness! You’re not quite a heathen.”

She had intended to teach Anne the childish classic, “Now I lay me down to sleep.” But she had, as I have told you, the glimmerings of a sense of humor—which is simply another name for a sense of fitness of things; and it suddenly occurred to her that that simple little prayer, sacred to white-robed childhood lisping at motherly knees, was entirely unsuited to this freckled witch of a girl who knew and cared nothing about God’s love, since she had never had it translated to her through the medium of human love.

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

Perhaps an old maid doesn’t know much about bringing up a child, but I guess she knows more than an old bachelor.

“They made us learn the whole catechism. I liked it pretty well. There’s something splendid about some of the words. ‘Infinite, eternal and unchangeable.’ Isn’t that grand? It has such a roll to it—just like a big organ playing. You couldn’t quite call it poetry, I suppose, but it sounds a lot like it, doesn’t it?”

“But I wish the artist hadn’t painted Him so sorrowful looking. All His pictures are like that, if you’ve noticed. But I don’t believe He could really have looked so sad or the children would have been afraid of Him.”

“Just imagine how you would feel if somebody told you to your face that you were skinny and ugly,” pleaded Anne tearfully. An old remembrance suddenly rose up before Marilla. She had been a very small child when she had heard one aunt say of her to another, “What a pity she is such a dark, homely little thing.” Marilla was every day of fifty before the sting had gone out of that memory.

“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.”

“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.

He was a tall boy, with curly brown hair, roguish hazel eyes, and a mouth twisted into a teasing smile.

“I’ll try to be a model pupil,” agreed Anne dolefully. “There won’t be much fun in it, I expect.”

The tinkles of sleigh bells among the snowy hills came like elfin chimes through the frosty air, but their music was not sweeter than the song in Anne’s heart and on her lips.

“Do you remember what happened this day last year, Marilla?” “No, I can’t think of anything special.” “Oh, Marilla, it was the day I came to Green Gables. I shall never forget it. It was the turning point in my life.”

“Well, well, we can’t get through this world without our share of trouble. I’ve had a pretty easy life of it so far, but my time has come at last and I suppose I’ll just have to make the best of it.”

Poor Marilla was only preserved from complete collapse by remembering that it was not irreverence, but simply spiritual ignorance on the part of Anne that was responsible for this extraordinary petition.

“Do you never imagine things different from what they really are?” asked Anne wide-eyed. “No.” “Oh!” Anne drew a long breath. “Oh, Miss—Marilla, how much you miss!”

I wonder if Diana is to be my bosom friend. I hope she will, and I shall love her very much.

“I’m sure I don’t know why you should lose your temper like that just because Mrs. Lynde said you were red-haired and homely. You say it yourself often enough.” “Oh, but there’s such a difference between saying a thing yourself and hearing other people say it,” wailed Anne.

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.

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.

“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.”

“That’s one good thing about me. I never do the same naughty thing twice.”

“Gracious heavenly Father—that’s the way the ministers say it in church, so I suppose it’s all right in private prayer, isn’t it?”

“I could have made it much more flowery if I’d had a little more time to think it over.”

“What am I to call you?” asked Anne. “Shall I always say Miss Cuthbert? Can I call you Aunt Marilla?” “No; you’ll call me just plain Marilla. I’m not used to being called Miss Cuthbert and it would make me nervous.”

“It’s bad enough to have red hair myself, but I positively couldn’t endure it in a bosom friend.”

“How dare you say such things about me?” she repeated vehemently. “How would you like to have such things said about you? How would you like to be told that you are fat and clumsy and probably hadn’t a spark of imagination in you?”

“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.”

“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.”

“Saying one’s prayers isn’t exactly the same thing as praying,” said Anne meditatively.

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.

“Everybody, young and old, in Avonlea calls me Marilla except the minister. He says Miss Cuthbert—when he thinks of it.”

“Can’t I call you Aunt Marilla?” “No. I’m not your aunt and I don’t believe in calling people names that don’t belong to them.”

Next to being beautiful oneself—and that’s impossible in my case—it would be best to have a beautiful bosom friend.

“You may know a thing is so, but you can’t help hoping other people don’t quite think it is.”

“I imagine a good deal, and that helps to pass the time.”

“Oh, Marilla, please, please, let me go to the picnic. Think of the ice cream! For anything you know I may never have a chance to taste ice cream again.”

Anne’s long red braid, held it out at arm’s length and said in a piercing whisper: “Carrots! Carrots!” Then Anne looked at him with a vengeance! She did more than look. She sprang to her feet, her bright fancies fallen into cureless ruin. She flashed one indignant glance at Gilbert from eyes whose angry sparkle was swiftly quenched in equally angry tears. “You mean, hateful boy!” she exclaimed passionately. “How dare you!” And then—thwack! Anne had brought her slate down on Gilbert’s head and cracked it—slate not head—clear across. Avonlea school always enjoyed a scene. This was an especially enjoyable one.

“I’d do almost anything in the world for you, Diana,” said Anne sadly. “I’d let myself be torn limb from limb if it would do you any good.”

“I can’t go to school. I just know I couldn’t keep my eyes open and I’d be so stupid. But I hate to stay home, for Gil—some of the others will get head of the class, and it’s so hard to get up again—although of course the harder it is the more satisfaction you have when you do get up, haven’t you?”

“Well, anyway, when I am grown up,” said Anne decidedly, “I’m always going to talk to little girls as if they were too, and I’ll never laugh when they use big words. I know from sorrowful experience how that hurts one’s feelings.”

Argument was not his strong point, but holding fast to his opinion certainly was.

“A haunted wood is so very romantic, Marilla.”

“You’ll just pamper Anne’s vanity, Matthew, and she’s as vain as a peacock now.”

Mrs. Allan says we should never make uncharitable speeches; but they do slip out so often before you think, don’t they? I simply can’t talk about Josie Pye without making an uncharitable speech, so I never mention her at all.

Matthew Cuthbert, it’s about time somebody adopted that child and taught her something. She’s next door to a perfect heathen.

By noon she had concluded that Anne was smart and obedient, willing to work and quick to learn; her most serious shortcoming seemed to be a tendency to fall into daydreams in the middle of a task and forget all about it until such time as she was sharply recalled to earth by a reprimand or a catastrophe.

“Marilla,” she demanded presently, “do you think that I shall ever have a bosom friend in Avonlea?” “A—a what kind of friend?” “A bosom friend—an intimate friend, you know—a really kindred spirit to whom I can confide my inmost soul. I’ve dreamed of meeting her all my life.”

I couldn’t talk of them to everybody—their memories are too sacred for that. But I thought I’d like to have you know about them.

“What do you do when you meet with an irresistible temptation?”

“Did anybody ever see such a temper!”

“Wild horses won’t drag the secret from me,” promised Anne solemnly. “How would wild horses drag a secret from a person anyhow?”

“I could never express all my sorrow, no, not if I used up a whole dictionary. You must just imagine it.”

“It’s lovely to be going home and know it’s home,” she said.

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.

“He was talking to God and he didn’t seem to be very much interested in it, either. I think he thought God was too far off though.”

“You don’t know much about her or her real disposition, I suppose, and there’s no guessing how a child like that will turn out. But I don’t want to discourage you I’m sure, Marilla.” “I’m not feeling discouraged,” was Marilla’s dry response, “when I make up my mind to do a thing it stays made up.”

“Well, they didn’t pick you for your looks, that’s sure and certain,” was Mrs. Rachel Lynde’s emphatic comment. Mrs. Rachel was one of those delightful and popular people who pride themselves on speaking their mind without fear or favor.

How unfortunate that Anne should have displayed such temper before Mrs. Rachel Lynde, of all people!

“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.”

“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 harrow up my very soul.”

“Well, since you’ve asked my advice, Marilla,” said Mrs. Lynde amiably—Mrs. Lynde dearly loved to be asked for advice—“I’d just humor her a little at first, that’s what I’d do.”

“Mrs. Lynde says Canada is going to the dogs the way things are being run at Ottawa and that it’s an awful warning to the electors. She says if women were allowed to vote we would soon see a blessed change.”

“Ruby Gillis says that when a man is courting he always has to agree with the girl’s mother in religion and her father in politics.”

“I never really supposed I would, but so many of my loveliest dreams have come true all at once that perhaps this one will, too. Do you think it’s possible?”

She danced up to the little looking-glass and peered into it. Her pointed freckled face and solemn gray eyes peered back at her. “You’re only Anne of Green Gables,” she said earnestly, “and I see you, just as you are looking now, whenever I try to imagine I’m the Lady Cordelia. But it’s a million times nicer to be Anne of Green Gables than Anne of nowhere in particular, isn’t it?”

“Matthew took a fancy to her. And I must say I like her myself—although I admit she has her faults. The house seems a different place already. She’s a real bright little thing.”

“Well, good evening, Marilla. I hope you’ll come down to see me often as usual. But you can’t expect me to visit here again in a hurry, if I’m liable to be flown at and insulted in such a fashion. It’s something new in my experience.” Whereat Mrs. Rachel swept out and away—if a fat woman who always waddled could be said to sweep away—and Marilla with a very solemn face betook herself to the east gable.

“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.”

“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.”

“You’re a queer girl, Anne. I heard before that you were queer. But I believe I’m going to like you real well.”

Charlie Sloane is dead gone on you. He told his mother—his mother, mind you—that you were the smartest girl in school. That’s better than being good looking.

This isn’t poetry, but it makes me feel just the same way poetry does. ‘Our Father who art in heaven hallowed be Thy name.’ That is just like a line of music.

“Diana is a very pretty little girl. She has black eyes and hair and rosy cheeks. And she is good and smart, which is better than being pretty.”

Marilla was as fond of morals as the Duchess in Wonderland, and was firmly convinced that one should be tacked on to every remark made to a child who was being brought up.

“Well, I don’t envy you your job bringing that up, Marilla,” said Mrs. Rachel with unspeakable solemnity.

Her temper matches her hair I guess.

Oh, no, I’m not vexed—don’t worry yourself. I’m too sorry for you to leave any room for anger in my mind.

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.

“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?”

“You are the very wickedest girl I ever heard of.” “Yes, I suppose I am,” agreed Anne tranquilly. “And I know I’ll have to be punished. It’ll be your duty to punish me, Marilla. Won’t you please get it over right off because I’d like to go to the picnic with nothing on my mind.”

“He’s aw’fly handsome, Anne. And he teases the girls something terrible. He just torments our lives out.” Diana’s voice indicated that she rather liked having her life tormented out than not.

“I’d rather be pretty than clever.

“I think your Gilbert Blythe is handsome,” confided Anne to Diana, “but I think he’s very bold. It isn’t good manners to wink at a strange girl.”

“Marilla is a famous cook. She is trying to teach me to cook but I assure you, Diana, it is uphill work. There’s so little scope for imagination in cookery. You just have to go by rules.”

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.

“That child is hard to understand in some respects. But I believe she’ll turn out all right yet. And there’s one thing certain, no house will ever be dull that she’s in.”

“It’s nice to be clever at something, isn’t it?”

“You don’t go to school to criticize the master.”

“I love Diana so, Marilla. I cannot ever live without her. But I know very well when we grow up that Diana will get married and go away and leave me. And oh, what shall I do? I hate her husband—I just hate him furiously.”

“It makes me very sad at times to think about her. But really, Marilla, one can’t stay sad very long in such an interesting world, can one?”

Anne, although sincerely sorry for Minnie May, was far from being insensible to the romance of the situation and to the sweetness of once more sharing that romance with a kindred spirit.

“I’m perfectly happy—yes, in spite of my red hair. Just at present I have a soul above red hair.”

“Diana has only one birthday in a year. It isn’t as if birthdays were common things, Marilla.”

“Mr. Gresham was a very good man and a very religious man, but he told too many funny stories and made the people laugh in church; he was undignified, and you must have some dignity about a minister, mustn’t you, Matthew?”

“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?”

“I shall never forgive Gilbert Blythe,” said Anne firmly. “And Mr. Phillips spelled my name without an e, too. The iron has entered into my soul, Diana.”

Anne had evidently made up her mind to hate Gilbert Blythe to the end of life.

“I love you devotedly, Anne,” said Diana stanchly, “and I always will, you may be sure of that.” “And I will always love thee, Diana,” said Anne, solemnly extending her hand. “In the years to come thy memory will shine like a star over my lonely life, as that last story we read together says.”

Ruby Gillis says when she grows up she’s going to have ever so many beaus on the string and have them all crazy about her; but I think that would be too exciting. I’d rather have just one in his right mind.

“Matthew and I are such kindred spirits I can read his thoughts without words at all.”

“That little redheaded girl they have over at Cuthbert’s is as smart as they make ‘em.

“Oh, Marilla, can I go right now—without washing my dishes? I’ll wash them when I come back, but I cannot tie myself down to anything so unromantic as dishwashing at this thrilling moment.”

Miss Marilla Cuthbert is a very kind lady who has taken me to bring up properly. She is doing her best, but it is very discouraging work.

In all essential respects the little gable chamber was unchanged. The walls were as white, the pincushion as hard, the chairs as stiffly and yellowly upright as ever. Yet the whole character of the room was altered. It was full of a new vital, pulsing personality that seemed to pervade it and to be quite independent of schoolgirl books and dresses and ribbons, and even of the cracked blue jug full of apple blossoms on the table. It was as if all the dreams, sleeping and waking, of its vivid occupant had taken a visible although unmaterial form and had tapestried the bare room with splendid filmy tissues of rainbow and moonshine.

“I’ve had my doubts about that imagination of yours right along, and if this is going to be the outcome of it, I won’t countenance any such doings.”

Bitterly did she repent the license she had given to her imagination.

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.