“Oh, that note was only meant as a joke,” gasped Anne.  “Mr. Harrison has no intention of marrying anybody.  I assure you he hasn’t.”

“I’m very glad to hear it,” said the rosy lady, climbing nimbly back to her seat in the wagon, “because he happens to be married already. I am his wife.  Oh, you may well look surprised.  I suppose he has been masquerading as a bachelor and breaking hearts right and left.  Well, well, James A.,” nodding vigorously over the fields at the long white house, “your fun is over.  I am here . . . though I wouldn’t have bothered coming if I hadn’t thought you were up to some mischief.  I suppose,” turning to Anne, “that parrot of his is as profane as ever?”

“His parrot . . . is dead . . .  I think,” gasped poor Anne, who couldn’t have felt sure of her own name at that precise moment.

“Dead!  Everything will be all right then,” cried the rosy lady jubilantly.  “I can manage James A. if that bird is out of the way.”

With which cryptic utterance she went joyfully on her way and Anne flew to the kitchen door to meet Marilla.

“Anne, who was that woman?”

“Marilla,” said Anne solemnly, but with dancing eyes, “do I look as if I were crazy?”

“Not more so than usual,” said Marilla, with no thought of being sarcastic.

“Well then, do you think I am awake?”

“Anne, what nonsense has got into you?  Who was that woman, I say?”

“Marilla, if I’m not crazy and not asleep she can’t be such stuff as dreams are made of . . . she must be real.  Anyway, I’m sure I couldn’t have imagined such a bonnet.  She says she is Mr. Harrison’s wife, Marilla.”

Marilla stared in her turn.

“His wife!  Anne Shirley!  Then what has he been passing himself off as an unmarried man for?”

“I don’t suppose he did, really,” said Anne, trying to be just.  “He never said he wasn’t married.  People simply took it for granted.  Oh Marilla, what will Mrs. Lynde say to this?”

They found out what Mrs. Lynde had to say when she came up that evening.  Mrs. Lynde wasn’t surprised!  Mrs. Lynde had always expected something of the sort!  Mrs. Lynde had always known there was something about Mr. Harrison!

“To think of his deserting his wife!” she said indignantly.  “It’s like something you’d read of in the States, but who would expect such a thing to happen right here in Avonlea?”

“But we don’t know that he deserted her,” protested Anne, determined to believe her friend innocent till he was proved guilty.  “We don’t know the rights of it at all.”

“Well, we soon will.  I’m going straight over there,” said Mrs. Lynde, who had never learned that there was such a word as delicacy in the dictionary.  “I’m not supposed to know anything about her arrival, and Mr. Harrison was to bring some medicine for Thomas from Carmody today, so that will be a good excuse.  I’ll find out the whole story and come in and tell you on the way back.”