When weddings were in order Mrs. Rachel was ready to let the dead past bury its dead . `` I 'm going to give Anne two of my cotton warp spreads , '' she resumed . `` A tobacco-stripe one and an apple-leaf one . She tells me they 're getting to be real fashionable again . Well , fashion or no fashion , I do n't believe there 's anything prettier for a spare-room bed than a nice apple-leaf spread , that 's what . I must see about getting them bleached . I 've had them sewed up in cotton bags ever since Thomas died , and no doubt they 're an awful color . But there 's a month yet , and dew-bleaching will work wonders . '' Only a month ! Marilla sighed and then said proudly : `` I 'm giving Anne that half dozen braided rugs I have in the garret . I never supposed she 'd want them -- they 're so old-fashioned , and nobody seems to want anything but hooked mats now . But she asked me for them -- said she 'd rather have them than anything else for her floors . They ARE pretty . I made them of the nicest rags , and braided them in stripes . It was such company these last few winters . And I 'll make her enough blue plum preserve to stock her jam closet for a year . It seems real strange . Those blue plum trees had n't even a blossom for three years , and I thought they might as well be cut down . And this last spring they were white , and such a crop of plums I never remember at Green Gables . '' `` Well , thank goodness that Anne and Gilbert really are going to be married after all .
It 's what I 've always prayed for , '' said Mrs. XXXXX , in the tone of one who is comfortably sure that her prayers have availed much .
Gilbert Marilla Rachel apple-leaf dew-bleaching garret plums spare-room winters year