Mrs. Blewett darted her eyes over Anne from head to foot . `` How old are you and what 's your name ? '' she demanded . `` Anne Shirley , '' faltered the shrinking child , not daring to make any stipulations regarding the spelling thereof , `` and I 'm eleven years old . '' `` Humph ! You do n't look as if there was much to you . But you 're wiry . I do n't know but the wiry ones are the best after all . Well , if I take you you 'll have to be a good girl , you know -- good and smart and respectful . I 'll expect you to earn your keep , and no mistake about that . Yes , I suppose I might as well take her off your hands , Miss Cuthbert . The baby 's awful fractious , and I 'm clean worn out attending to him . If you like I can take her right home now . '' Marilla looked at Anne and softened at sight of the child 's pale face with its look of mute misery -- the misery of a helpless little creature who finds itself once more caught in the trap from which it had escaped . Marilla felt an uncomfortable conviction that , if she denied the appeal of that look , it would haunt her to her dying day . More-over , she did not fancy Mrs. Blewett . To hand a sensitive , `` highstrung '' child over to such a woman ! No , she could not take the responsibility of doing that ! `` Well , I do n't know , '' she said slowly . `` I did n't say that Matthew and I had absolutely decided that we would n't keep her .
In fact I may say XXXXX Matthew is disposed to keep her .
Shirley about after at day if like of that to