Two weeks later Anne and Gilbert would leave for Redmond College . In a week 's time Mrs. Rachel Lynde would move to Green Gables and set up her lares and penates in the erstwhile spare room , which was already prepared for her coming . She had sold all her superfluous household plenishings by auction and was at present reveling in the congenial occupation of helping the Allans pack up . Mr. Allan was to preach his farewell sermon the next Sunday . The old order was changing rapidly to give place to the new , as Anne felt with a little sadness threading all her excitement and happiness . `` Changes ai n't totally pleasant but they 're excellent things , '' said Mr. Harrison philosophically . `` Two years is about long enough for things to stay exactly the same . If they stayed put any longer they might grow mossy . '' Mr. Harrison was smoking on his veranda . His wife had self-sacrificingly told that he might smoke in the house if he took care to sit by an open window . Mr. Harrison rewarded this concession by going outdoors altogether to smoke in fine weather , and so mutual goodwill reigned . Anne had come over to ask Mrs. Harrison for some of her yellow dahlias . She and Diana were going through to Echo Lodge that evening to help Miss Lavendar and Charlotta the Fourth with their final preparations for the morrow 's bridal . Miss Lavendar herself never had dahlias ; she did not like them and they would not have suited the fine retirement of her old-fashioned garden . But flowers of any kind were rather scarce in Avonlea and the neighboring districts that summer , thanks to Uncle Abe 's storm ; and Anne and Diana thought that a certain old cream-colored stone jug , usually kept sacred to doughnuts , brimmed over with yellow dahlias , would be just the thing to set in a dim angle of the stone house stairs , against the dark background of red hall paper . `` I s ` pose you 'll be starting off for college in a fortnight 's time ? '' continued Mr. Harrison . `` Well , we 're going to miss you an awful lot , Emily and me . To be sure , Mrs. Lynde 'll be over there in your place . There ai n't nobody but a substitute can be found for them . ''
The irony XXXXX Mr. Harrison 's tone is quite untransferable to paper .
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