`` I suppose I 'm growing old , '' she said . Yet Marilla had changed but little in the past nine years , save to grow something thinner , and even more angular ; there was a little more gray in the hair that was still twisted up in the same hard knot , with two hairpins -- WERE they the same hairpins ? -- still stuck through it . But her expression was very different ; the something about the mouth which had hinted at a sense of humor had developed wonderfully ; her eyes were gentler and milder , her smile more frequent and tender . Marilla was thinking of her whole past life , her cramped but not unhappy childhood , the jealously hidden dreams and the blighted hopes of her girlhood , the long , gray , narrow , monotonous years of dull middle life that followed . And the coming of Anne -- the vivid , imaginative , impetuous child with her heart of love , and her world of fancy , bringing with her color and warmth and radiance , until the wilderness of existence had blossomed like the rose . Marilla felt that out of her sixty years she had lived only the nine that had followed the advent of Anne . And Anne would be home tomorrow night . The kitchen door opened . Marilla looked up expecting to see Mrs. Lynde . Anne stood before her , tall and starry-eyed , with her hands full of Mayflowers and violets . `` Anne Shirley ! '' exclaimed Marilla . For once in her life she was surprised out of her reserve ; she caught her girl in her arms and crushed her and her flowers against her heart , kissing the bright hair and sweet face warmly . `` I never looked for you till tomorrow night . How did you get from Carmody ? '' `` Walked , dearest of Marillas . Have n't I done it a score of times in the Queen 's days ? The mailman is to bring my trunk tomorrow ; I just got homesick all at once , and came a day earlier . And oh !
I 've had such a lovely walk XXXXX the May twilight ; I stopped by the barrens and picked these Mayflowers ; I came through Violet-Vale ; it 's just a big bowlful of violets now -- the dear , sky-tinted things .
For about at from in of through till to with