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‘I am glad you won’t have to live with that green plush sofa,’ said Anne.

‘The sofa? Oh, yes, the furniture is very old-fashioned, isn’t it? But she is taking it with her and Alden is going to refurnish completely. So you see everyone is pleased, Mrs Blythe, and won’t you give us your good wishes, too?’

Anne leaned quickly forward and kissed Stella’s cool satin cheek.

‘I am very glad for you. God bless the days that are coming for you, my dear.’

When Stella had gone Anne flew up to her own room to avoid seeing anyone for a few moments. A cynical, lop-sided old moon was coming out from behind some shaggy clouds in the east and the fields beyond seemed to wink slyly and impishly at her.

She took stock of all the preceding weeks. She had ruined her dining-room carpet, destroyed two treasured heirlooms, and spoiled her library ceiling; she had been trying to use Mrs Churchill as a cat’s-paw, and Mrs Churchill must have been laughing in her sleeve all the time.

‘Who,’ asked Anne of the moon, ‘has been made the biggest fool of in this affair? I know what Gilbert’s opinion will be. All the trouble I’ve gone to, to bring about a marriage between two people who were already engaged! I’m cured of matchmaking… absolutely cured. Never will I lift a finger to promote a marriage if nobody in the world ever gets married again. Well, there is one consolation… Jen Pringle’s letter today saying she is going to marry Lewis Stedman, whom she met at my party. The Bristol candlesticks were not sacrificed entirely in vain. Boys… boys! Must you make such unearthly noises down there?’

‘We’re owls… we have to hoot,’ Jem’s injured voice proclaimed from the dark shrubbery. He knew he was making a very good job of hooting. Jem could mimic the voice of any little wild thing out in the woods. Walter was not so good at it and he presently ceased being an owl and became a rather disillusioned little boy, creeping to Mother for comfort.

‘Mummy, I thought crickets sang… and Mr Carter Flagg said today they don’t… they just make that noise scraping their hind-legs. Do they, Mummy?’

‘Something like that… I’m not quite sure of the process. But that is their way of singing, you know.’

‘I don’t like it. I’ll never like to hear them singing again.’

‘Oh, yes, you will. You’ll forget about the hind-legs in time and just think of their fairy chorus all over the harvest meadows and the autumn hills. Isn’t it bed-time, small son?’

‘Mummy, will you tell me a bed-time story that will send a cold chill down my spine? And sit beside me afterwards till I go to sleep?’

‘What else are mothers for, darling?’

19

‘ “The time has come the Walrus said to talk of”… having a dog,’ said Gilbert.

They had not had a dog at Ingleside since old Rex had been poisoned, but boys should have a dog, and the doctor decided he would get them one. But he was so busy that fall that he kept putting it off; and finally one November day Jem arrived home from an afternoon spent with a school pal carrying a dog… a little ‘yaller’ dog with two black ears sticking cockily up.

‘Joe Reese gave it to me, Mother. His name is Gyp. Hasn’t he got the cutest tail? I can keep him, can’t I, Mother?’

‘What kind of a dog is he, darling?’ asked Anne dubiously.

‘I… I think he’s a lot of kinds,’ said Jem. ‘That makes him more int’resting, don’t you think, Mother? More exciting than if he was just one kind. Please, Mother.’

‘Oh, if your father says yes…’

Gilbert said ‘Yes’ and Jem entered into his heritage. Everybody at Ingleside welcomed Gyp into the family except the Shrimp, who expressed his opinion without circumlocution. Even Susan took a liking to him, and when she spun in the garret on rainy days Gyp, in his master’s absence at school, stayed with her, gloriously hunting imaginary rats in dark corners and uttering a yelp of terror whenever his eagerness brought him too close to the little spinning wheel. It was never used… the Morgans had left it there when they moved out… and sat in its dark corner like a little