demanded Marilla . `` I 'm sure you 've gone to bed alone all summer and never been frightened before . '' Dora still continued to cry , so Anne picked her up , cuddled her sympathetically , and whispered , `` Tell Anne all about it , sweetheart . What are you frightened of ? '' `` Of ... of Mirabel Cotton 's uncle , '' sobbed Dora . `` Mirabel Cotton told me all about her family today in school . Nearly everybody in her family has died ... all her grandfathers and grandmothers and ever so many uncles and aunts . They have a habit of dying , Mirabel says . Mirabel 's awful proud of having so many dead relations , and she told me what they all died of , and what they said , and how they looked in their coffins . And Mirabel says one of her uncles was seen walking around the house after he was buried . Her mother saw him . I do n't mind the rest so much but I ca n't help thinking about that uncle . '' Anne went upstairs with Dora and sat by her until she fell asleep . The next day Mirabel Cotton was kept in at recess and `` gently but firmly '' given to understand that when you were so unfortunate as to possess an uncle who persisted in walking about houses after he had been decently interred it was not in good taste to talk about that eccentric gentleman to your deskmate of tender years . Mirabel thought this very harsh . The Cottons had not much to boast of . How was she to keep up her prestige among her schoolmates if she were forbidden to make capital out of the family ghost ? September slipped by into a gold and crimson graciousness of October . One Friday evening Diana came over . `` I 'd a letter from Ella Kimball today , Anne , and she wants us to go over to tea tomorrow afternoon to meet her cousin , Irene Trent , from town .
But we ca n't get one of our horses to go , for they 'll all be XXXXX use tomorrow , and your pony is lame ... so I suppose we ca n't go . ''
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