`` Sanch , introduce your master , that I may thank him for coming back in time to save my old house . '' `` If I 'd saved a dozen it would n't have half paid for all you 've done for my boy , ma'am , '' answered Mr. Brown , bursting out from behind the gate quite red with gratitude and pleasure . `` I loved to do it , so please remember that this is still his home till you make one for him . Thank God , he is no longer fatherless ! '' and her sweet face said even more than her words as the white hand cordially shook the brown one with a burn across the back . `` Come on , sister . I see the tea-table all ready , and I 'm awfully hungry , '' interrupted Thorny , who had not a ray of sentiment about him , though very glad Ben had got his father back again . `` Come over , by-and-by , little friends , and let me thank you for your pretty welcome , -- it certainly is a warm one ; '' and Mrs. Celia glanced merrily from the three bright faces above her to the old chimney , which still smoked sullenly . `` Oh , do n't ! '' cried Bab , hiding her face . `` She did n't mean to , '' added Betty , pleadingly . `` Three cheers for the bride ! '' roared Ben , dipping his flag , as leaning on her husband 's arm his dear mistress passed under the gay arch , along the leaf-strewn walk , over the threshold of the house which was to be her happy home for many years . CHAPTER 1 IN THE GARRET OF GREEN GABLES `` Thanks be , I 'm done with geometry , learning or teaching it , '' said Anne Shirley , a trifle vindictively , as she thumped a somewhat battered volume of Euclid into a big chest of books , banged the lid in triumph , and sat down upon it , looking at Diana Wright across the Green Gables garret , with gray eyes that were like a morning sky . The garret was a shadowy , suggestive , delightful place , as all garrets should be . Through the open window , by which Anne sat , blew the sweet , scented , sun-warm air of the August afternoon ; outside , poplar boughs rustled and tossed in the wind ; beyond them were the woods , where Lover 's Lane wound its enchanted path , and the old apple orchard which still bore its rosy harvests munificently . And , over all , was a great mountain range of snowy clouds in the blue southern sky . Through the other window was glimpsed a distant , white-capped , blue sea -- the beautiful St. Lawrence Gulf , on which floats , like a jewel , Abegweit , whose softer , sweeter Indian name has long been forsaken for the more prosaic one of Prince Edward Island . Diana Wright , three years older than when we last saw her , had grown somewhat matronly in the intervening time . But her eyes were as black and brilliant , her cheeks as rosy , and her dimples as enchanting , as in the long-ago days when she and Anne Shirley had vowed eternal friendship in the garden at Orchard Slope .
In her arms she held a small , sleeping , black-curled creature , who for two happy XXXXX had been known to the world of Avonlea as `` Small Anne Cordelia . ''
Bab Betty Brown Edward Indian Wright afternoon garret morning years