`` If I had been the boy you sent for , '' said Anne wistfully , `` I 'd be able to help you so much now and spare you in a hundred ways . I could find it in my heart to wish I had been , just for that . '' `` Well now , I 'd rather have you than a dozen boys , Anne , '' said Matthew patting her hand . `` Just mind you that -- rather than a dozen boys . Well now , I guess it was n't a boy that took the Avery scholarship , was it ? It was a girl -- my girl -- my girl that I 'm proud of . '' He smiled his shy smile at her as he went into the yard . Anne took the memory of it with her when she went to her room that night and sat for a long while at her open window , thinking of the past and dreaming of the future . Outside the Snow Queen was mistily white in the moonshine ; the frogs were singing in the marsh beyond Orchard Slope . Anne always remembered the silvery , peaceful beauty and fragrant calm of that night . It was the last night before sorrow touched her life ; and no life is ever quite the same again when once that cold , sanctifying touch has been laid upon it . CHAPTER XXXVII . The Reaper Whose Name Is Death `` Matthew -- Matthew -- what is the matter ? Matthew , are you sick ? '' It was Marilla who spoke , alarm in every jerky word . Anne came through the hall , her hands full of white narcissus , -- it was long before Anne could love the sight or odor of white narcissus again , -- in time to hear her and to see Matthew standing in the porch doorway , a folded paper in his hand , and his face strangely drawn and gray . Anne dropped her flowers and sprang across the kitchen to him at the same moment as Marilla . They were both too late ; before they could reach him Matthew had fallen across the threshold . `` He 's fainted , '' gasped Marilla . `` Anne , run for Martin -- quick , quick !
He 's XXXXX the barn . ''
across at for into of than that through upon with