Anne's House of Dreams by Lucy Maud Montgomery (free ebooks for android .txt) đ
- Author: Lucy Maud Montgomery
- Performer: 0553213180
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âWas that the only one of your dreams that has come true?â asked Anne, who knew perfectly well what the substance of his answer would be, but wanted to hear it again.
âYOU know, Anne-girl,â said Gilbert, smiling into her eyes. At that moment there were certainly two perfectly happy people sitting on the doorstep of a little white house on the Four Winds Harbor shore.
Presently Gilbert said, with a change of tone, âDo I or do I not see a full-rigged ship sailing up our lane?â
Anne looked and sprang up.
âThat must be either Miss Cornelia Bryant or Mrs. Moore coming to call,â she said.
âIâm going into the office, and if it is Miss Cornelia I warn you that Iâll eavesdrop,â said Gilbert. âFrom all Iâve heard regarding Miss Cornelia I conclude that her conversation will not be dull, to say the least.â
âIt may be Mrs. Moore.â
âI donât think Mrs. Moore is built on those lines. I saw her working in her garden the other day, and, though I was too far away to see clearly, I thought she was rather slender. She doesnât seem very socially inclined when she has never called on you yet, although sheâs your nearest neighbor.â
âShe canât be like Mrs. Lynde, after all, or curiosity would have brought her,â said Anne. âThis caller is, I think, Miss Cornelia.â
Miss Cornelia it was; moreover, Miss Cornelia had not come to make any brief and fashionable wedding call. She had her work under her arm in a substantial parcel, and when Anne asked her to stay she promptly took off her capacious sun-hat, which had been held on her head, despite irreverent September breezes, by a tight elastic band under her hard little knob of fair hair. No hat pins for Miss Cornelia, an it please ye! Elastic bands had been good enough for her mother and they were good enough for HER. She had a fresh, round, pink-and-white face, and jolly brown eyes. She did not look in the least like the traditional old maid, and there was something in her expression which won Anne instantly. With her old instinctive quickness to discern kindred spirits she knew she was going to like Miss Cornelia, in spite of uncertain oddities of opinion, and certain oddities of attire.
Nobody but Miss Cornelia would have come to make a call arrayed in a striped blue-and-white apron and a wrapper of chocolate print, with a design of huge, pink roses scattered over it. And nobody but Miss Cornelia could have looked dignified and suitably garbed in it. Had Miss Cornelia been entering a palace to call on a princeâs bride, she would have been just as dignified and just as wholly mistress of the situation. She would have trailed her rose-spattered flounce over the marble floors just as unconcernedly, and she would have proceeded just as calmly to disabuse the mind of the princess of any idea that the possession of a mere man, be he prince or peasant, was anything to brag of.
âIâve brought my work, Mrs. Blythe, dearie,â she remarked, unrolling some dainty material. âIâm in a hurry to get this done, and there isnât any time to lose.â
Anne looked in some surprise at the white garment spread over Miss Corneliaâs ample lap. It was certainly a babyâs dress, and it was most beautifully made, with tiny frills and tucks. Miss Cornelia adjusted her glasses and fell to embroidering with exquisite stitches.
âThis is for Mrs. Fred Proctor up at the Glen,â she announced. âSheâs expecting her eighth baby any day now, and not a stitch has she ready for it. The other seven have wore out all she made for the first, and sheâs never had time or strength or spirit to make any more. That woman is a martyr, Mrs. Blythe, believe ME. When she married Fred Proctor I knew how it would turn out. He was one of your wicked, fascinating men. After he got married he left off being fascinating and just kept on being wicked. He drinks and he neglects his family. Isnât that like a man? I donât know how Mrs. Proctor would ever keep her children decently clothed if her neighbors didnât help her out.â
As Anne was afterwards to learn, Miss Cornelia was the only neighbor who troubled herself much about the decency of the young Proctors.
âWhen I heard this eighth baby was coming I decided to make some things for it,â Miss Cornelia went on. âThis is the last and I want to finish it today.â
âItâs certainly very pretty,â said Anne. âIâll get my sewing and weâll have a little thimble party of two. You are a beautiful sewer, Miss Bryant.â
âYes, Iâm the best sewer in these parts,â said Miss Cornelia in a matter-of-fact tone. âI ought to be! Lord, Iâve done more of it than if Iâd had a hundred children of my own, believe ME! I sâpose Iâm a fool, to be putting hand embroidery on this dress for an eighth baby. But, Lord, Mrs. Blythe, dearie, it isnât to blame for being the eighth, and I kind of wished it to have one real pretty dress, just as if it WAS wanted. Nobodyâs wanting the poor miteâso I put some extra fuss on its little things just on that account.â
âAny baby might be proud of that dress,â said Anne, feeling still more strongly that she was going to like Miss Cornelia.
âI sâpose youâve been thinking I was never coming to call on you,â resumed Miss Cornelia. âBut this is harvest month, you know, and Iâve been busyâand a lot of extra hands hanging round, eating moreân they work, just like the men. Iâd have come yesterday, but I went to Mrs. Roderick MacAllisterâs funeral. At first I thought my head was aching so badly I couldnât enjoy myself if I did go. But she was a hundred years old, and Iâd always promised myself that Iâd go to her funeral.â
âWas it a successful function?â asked Anne, noticing that the office door was ajar.
âWhatâs that? Oh, yes, it was a tremendous funeral. She had a very large connection. There was over one hundred and twenty carriages in the procession. There was one or two funny things happened. I thought that die I would to see old Joe Bradshaw, who is an infidel and never darkens the door of a church, singing `Safe in the Arms of Jesusâ with great gusto and fervor. He glories in singingâ thatâs why he never misses a funeral. Poor Mrs. Bradshaw didnât look much like singingâall wore out slaving. Old Joe starts out once in a while to buy her a present and brings home some new kind of farm machinery. Isnât that like a man? But what else would you expect of a man who never goes to church, even a Methodist one? I was real thankful to see you and the young Doctor in the Presbyterian church your first Sunday. No doctor for me who isnât a Presbyterian.â
âWe were in the Methodist church last Sunday evening,â said Anne wickedly.
âOh, I sâpose Dr. Blythe has to go to the Methodist church once in a while or he wouldnât get the Methodist practice.â
âWe liked the sermon very much,â declared Anne boldly. âAnd I thought the Methodist minsterâs prayer was one of the most beautiful I ever heard.â
âOh, Iâve no doubt he can pray. I never heard anyone make more beautiful prayers than old Simon Bentley, who was always drunk, or hoping to be, and the drunker he was the better he prayed.â
âThe Methodist minister is very fine looking,â said Anne, for the benefit of the office door.
âYes, heâs quite ornamental,â agreed Miss Cornelia. âOh, and VERY ladylike. And he thinks that every girl who looks at him falls in love with himâas if a Methodist minister, wandering about like any Jew, was such a prize! If you and the young doctor take MY advice, you wonât have much to do with the Methodists. My motto isâif you ARE a Presbyterian, BE a Presbyterian.â
âDonât you think that Methodists go to heaven as well as Presbyterians?â asked Anne smilelessly.
âThat isnât for US to decide. Itâs in higher hands than ours,â said Miss Cornelia solemnly. âBut I ainât going to associate with them on earth whatever I may have to do in heaven. THIS Methodist minister isnât married. The last one they had was, and his wife was the silliest, flightiest little thing I ever saw. I told her husband once that he should have waited till she was grown up before he married her. He said he wanted to have the training of her. Wasnât that like a man?â
âItâs rather hard to decide just when people ARE grown up,â laughed Anne.
âThatâs a true word, dearie. Some are grown up when theyâre born, and others ainât grown up when theyâre eighty, believe ME. That same Mrs. Roderick I was speaking of never grew up. She was as foolish when she was a hundred as when she was ten.â
âPerhaps that was why she lived so long,â suggested Anne.
âMaybe âtwas. Iâd rather live fifty sensible years than a hundred foolish ones.â
âBut just think what a dull world it would be if everyone was sensible,â pleaded Anne.
Miss Cornelia disdained any skirmish of flippant epigram.
âMrs. Roderick was a Milgrave, and the Milgraves never had much sense. Her nephew, Ebenezer Milgrave, used to be insane for years. He believed he was dead and used to rage at his wife because she wouldnât bury him. Iâd a-done it.â
Miss Cornelia looked so grimly determined that Anne could almost see her with a spade in her hand.
âDonât you know ANY good husbands, Miss Bryant?â
âOh, yes, lots of themâover yonder,â said Miss Cornelia, waving her hand through the open window towards the little graveyard of the church across the harbor.
âBut livingâgoing about in the flesh?â persisted Anne.
âOh, thereâs a few, just to show that with God all things are possible,â acknowledged Miss Cornelia reluctantly. âI donât deny that an odd man here and there, if heâs caught young and trained up proper, and if his mother has spanked him well beforehand, may turn out a decent being. YOUR husband, now, isnât so bad, as men go, from all I hear. I sâposeââMiss Cornelia looked sharply at Anne over her glassesââyou think thereâs nobody like him in the world.â
âThere isnât,â said Anne promptly.
âAh, well, I heard another bride say that once,â sighed Miss Cornelia. âJennie Dean thought when she married that there wasnât anybody like HER husband in the world. And she
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