Anne of Avonlea - L. M. Montgomery [83]
“It seems dreadful to be glad of anything in connection with a death,” said Anne soberly. “I’m sorry for poor Mr. Keith; but I am glad that we can keep the twins.”
“It’s a very good thing about the money,” said Marilla practically. “I wanted to keep them but I really didn’t see how I could afford to do it, especially when they grew older. The rent of the farm doesn’t do any more than keep the house and I was bound that not a cent of your money should be spent on them. You do far too much for them as it is. Dora didn’t need that new hat you bought her any more than a cat needs two tails. But now the way is made clear and they are provided for.”
Davy and Dora were delighted when they heard that they were to live at Green Gables “for good.” The death of an uncle whom they had never seen could not weigh a moment in the balance against that. But Dora had one misgiving.
“Was Uncle Richard buried?” she whispered to Anne.
“Yes, dear, of course.”
“He…he…isn’t like Mirabel Cotton’s uncle, is he?” in a still more agitated whisper. “He won’t walk about houses after being buried, will he, Anne?”
XXIII
Miss Lavendar’s Romance
“I THINK I’LL take a walk through to Echo Lodge this evening,” said Anne, one Friday afternoon in December.
“It looks like snow,” said Marilla dubiously.
“I’ll be there before the snow comes and I mean to stay all night. Diana can’t go because she has company, and I’m sure Miss Lavendar will be looking for me tonight. It’s a whole fortnight since I was there.”
Anne had paid many a visit to Echo Lodge since that October day. Sometimes she and Diana drove around by the road; sometimes they walked through the woods. When Diana could not go Anne went alone. Between her and Miss Lavendar had sprung up one of those fervent, helpful friendships possible only between a woman who has kept the freshness of youth in her heart and soul, and a girl whose imagination and intuition supplied the place of experience. Anne had at last discovered a real “kindred spirit,” while into the little lady’s lonely, sequestered life of dreams Anne and Diana came with the wholesome joy and exhilaration of the outer existence, which Miss Lavendar, “the world forgetting, by the world forgot,” had long ceased to share; they brought an atmosphere of youth and reality to the little stone house. Charlotta the Fourth always greeted them with her very widest smile…and Charlotta’s smiles were fearfully wide…loving them for the sake of her adored mistress as well as for their own. Never had there been such “high jinks” held in the little stone house as were held there that beautiful, late-lingering autumn, when November seemed October over again, and even December aped the sunshine and hazes of summer.
But on this particular day it seemed as if December had remembered that it was time for winter and had turned suddenly dull and brooding, with a windless hush predictive of coming snow. Nevertheless, Anne keenly enjoyed her walk through the great gray maze of the beech-lands; though alone she never found it lonely; her imagination peopled her path with merry companions, and with these she carried on a gay, pretended conversation that was wittier and more fascinating than conversations are apt to be in real life, where people sometimes fail most lamentably to talk up to the requirements. In a “make-believe” assembly of choice spirits everybody says just the thing you want her to say and so gives you the chance to say just what you want to say. Attended by this invisible company, Anne traversed the woods and arrived at the fir lane just as broad, feathery flakes began to flutter down softly.
At the first bend she came upon Miss Lavendar, standing under a big, broad-branching fir. She wore a gown of warm, rich red, and her head and shoulders were wrapped in a silvery gray