“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.”

XXVI

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.”