Chapter: |GET there they did, however, in due season. Mrs. Spencer lived in a big
yellow house at White Sands Cove, and she came to the door with surprise
and welcome mingled on her benevolent face.

"Dear, dear," she exclaimed, "you're the last folks I was looking for
today, but I'm real glad to see you. You'll put your horse in? And how
are you, Anne?"

"I'm as well as can be expected, thank you," said Anne smilelessly. A
blight seemed to have descended on her.

"I suppose we'll stay a little while to rest the mare," said Marilla,
"but I promised Matthew I'd be home early. The fact is, Mrs. Spencer,
there's been a queer mistake somewhere, and I've come over to see where
it is. We send word, Matthew and I, for you to bring us a boy from the
asylum. We told your brother Robert to tell you we wanted a boy ten or
eleven years old."

"Marilla Cuthbert, you don't say so!" said Mrs. Spencer in distress.
"Why, Robert sent word down by his daughter Nancy and she said you
wanted a girl--didn't she Flora Jane?" appealing to her daughter who had
come out to the steps.

"She certainly did, Miss Cuthbert," corroborated Flora Jane earnestly.

"I'm dreadful sorry," said Mrs. Spencer. "It's too bad; but it certainly
wasn't my fault, you see, Miss Cuthbert. I did the best I could and I
thought I was following your instructions. Nancy is a terrible flighty
thing. I've often had to scold her well for her heedlessness."

"It was our own fault," said Marilla resignedly. "We should have come
to you ourselves and not left an important message to be passed along by
word of mouth in that fashion. Anyhow, the mistake has been made and the
only thing to do is to set it right. Can we send the child back to the
asylum? I suppose they'll take her back, won't they?"

"I suppose so," said Mrs. Spencer thoughtfully, "but I don't think
it will be necessary to send her back. Mrs. Peter Blewett was up here
yesterday, and she was saying to me how much she wished she'd sent by me
for a little girl to help her. Mrs. Peter has a large family, you know,
and she finds it hard to get help. Anne will be the very girl for you. I
call it positively providential."

Marilla did not look as if she thought Providence had much to do with
the matter. Here was an unexpectedly good chance to get this unwelcome
orphan off her hands, and she did not even feel grateful for it.

She knew Mrs. Peter Blewett only by sight as a small, shrewish-faced
woman without an ounce of superfluous flesh on her bones. But she had
heard of her. "A terrible worker and driver," Mrs. Peter was said to
be; and discharged servant girls told fearsome tales of her temper and
stinginess, and her family of pert, quarrelsome children. Marilla felt
a qualm of conscience at the thought of handing Anne over to her tender
mercies.

"Well, I'll go in and we'll talk the matter over," she said.

"And if there isn't Mrs. Peter coming up the lane this blessed minute!"
exclaimed Mrs. Spencer, bustling her guests through the hall into the
parlor, where a deadly chill struck on them as if the air had been
strained so long through dark green, closely drawn blinds that it had
lost every particle of warmth it had ever possessed. "That is real
lucky, for we can settle the matter right away. Take the armchair, Miss
Cuthbert. Anne, you sit here on the ottoman and don't wiggle. Let
me take your hats. Flora Jane, go out and put the kettle on. Good
afternoon, Mrs. Blewett. We were just saying how fortunate it was you
happened along. Let me introduce you two ladies. Mrs. Blewett, Miss
Cuthbert. Please excuse me for just a moment. I forgot to tell Flora
Jane to take the buns out of the oven."

Mrs. Spencer whisked away, after pulling up the blinds. Anne sitting
mutely on the ottoman, with her hands clasped tightly in her lap, stared
at Mrs Blewett as one fascinated. Was she to be given into the keeping
of this sharp-faced, sharp-eyed woman? She felt a lump coming up in her
throat and her eyes smarted painfully. She was beginning to be afraid
she couldn't keep the tears back when Mrs. Spencer returned, flushed
and beaming, quite capable of taking any and every difficulty, physical,
mental or spiritual, into consideration and settling it out of hand.

"It seems there's been a mistake about this little girl, Mrs. Blewett,"
she said. "I was under the impression that Mr. and Miss Cuthbert wanted
a little girl to adopt. I was certainly told so. But it seems it was a
boy they wanted. So if you're still of the same mind you were yesterday,
I think she'll be just the thing for you."

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 don't look as if there was much to you. But you're wiry. I
don'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 don't know," she said slowly. "I didn't say that Matthew and I
had absolutely decided that we wouldn't keep her. In fact I may say that
Matthew is disposed to keep her. I just came over to find out how the
mistake had occurred. I think I'd better take her home again and talk it
over with Matthew. I feel that I oughtn't to decide on anything without
consulting him. If we make up our mind not to keep her we'll bring or
send her over to you tomorrow night. If we don't you may know that she
is going to stay with us. Will that suit you, Mrs. Blewett?"

"I suppose it'll have to," said Mrs. Blewett ungraciously.

During Marilla's speech a sunrise had been dawning on Anne's face. First
the look of despair faded out; then came a faint flush of hope;
her eyes grew deep and bright as morning stars. The child was quite
transfigured; and, a moment later, when Mrs. Spencer and Mrs. Blewett
went out in quest of a recipe the latter had come to borrow she sprang
up and flew across the room to Marilla.

"Oh, Miss Cuthbert, did you really say that perhaps you would let me
stay at Green Gables?" she said, in a breathless whisper, as if speaking
aloud might shatter the glorious possibility. "Did you really say it? Or
did I only imagine that you did?"

"I think you'd better learn to control that imagination of yours, Anne,
if you can't distinguish between what is real and what isn't," said
Marilla crossly. "Yes, you did hear me say just that and no more. It
isn't decided yet and perhaps we will conclude to let Mrs. Blewett take
you after all. She certainly needs you much more than I do."

"I'd rather go back to the asylum than go to live with her," said Anne
passionately. "She looks exactly like a--like a gimlet."

Marilla smothered a smile under the conviction that Anne must be
reproved for such a speech.

"A little girl like you should be ashamed of talking so about a lady and
a stranger," she said severely. "Go back and sit down quietly and hold
your tongue and behave as a good girl should."

"I'll try to do and be anything you want me, if you'll only keep me,"
said Anne, returning meekly to her ottoman.

When they arrived back at Green Gables that evening Matthew met them in
the lane. Marilla from afar had noted him prowling along it and guessed
his motive. She was prepared for the relief she read in his face when he
saw that she had at least brought back Anne back with her. But she said
nothing, to him, relative to the affair, until they were both out in the
yard behind the barn milking the cows. Then she briefly told him Anne's
history and the result of the interview with Mrs. Spencer.

"I wouldn't give a dog I liked to that Blewett woman," said Matthew with
unusual vim.

"I don't fancy her style myself," admitted Marilla, "but it's that
or keeping her ourselves, Matthew. And since you seem to want her, I
suppose I'm willing--or have to be. I've been thinking over the idea
until I've got kind of used to it. It seems a sort of duty. I've never
brought up a child, especially a girl, and I dare say I'll make a
terrible mess of it. But I'll do my best. So far as I'm concerned,
Matthew, she may stay."

Matthew's shy face was a glow of delight.

"Well now, I reckoned you'd come to see it in that light, Marilla," he
said. "She's such an interesting little thing."

"It'd be more to the point if you could say she was a useful little
thing," retorted Marilla, "but I'll make it my business to see she's
trained to be that. And mind, Matthew, you're not to go interfering with
my methods. Perhaps an old maid doesn't know much about bringing up
a child, but I guess she knows more than an old bachelor. So you just
leave me to manage her. When I fail it'll be time enough to put your oar
in."

"There, there, Marilla, you can have your own way," said Matthew
reassuringly. "Only be as good and kind to her as you can without
spoiling her. I kind of think she's one of the sort you can do anything
with if you only get her to love you."

Marilla sniffed, to express her contempt for Matthew's opinions
concerning anything feminine, and walked off to the dairy with the
pails.

"I won't tell her tonight that she can stay," she reflected, as she
strained the milk into the creamers. "She'd be so excited that she
wouldn't sleep a wink. Marilla Cuthbert, you're fairly in for it. Did
you ever suppose you'd see the day when you'd be adopting an orphan
girl? It's surprising enough; but not so surprising as that Matthew
should be at the bottom of it, him that always seemed to have such a
mortal dread of little girls. Anyhow, we've decided on the experiment
and goodness only knows what will come of it."

 When Marilla explains their predicament to Mrs. Spencer, Mrs. Spencer suggests that they give Anne to a woman named Mrs. Blewett, who needs help taking care of her children. Marilla's not so sure. Mrs. Blewett has a reputation for being mean and stingy. Her ex-servants have spread stories about her temper. Not a good sign. Mrs. Blewett happens to be walking up to the house for a visit. When introduced to Anne, she makes it clear she'd never see Anne as more than a servant, plus makes the creepy comment that "wiry ones are the best." Marilla sees the look on Anne's face and realizes she'll be haunted by it for the rest of her life if she doesn't step in. She claims she has to talk the situation over with Matthew and takes Anne back home. Anne's grateful and says Mrs. Blewett looked like a gimlet. Anyway, Marilla responds by lecturing Anne about respecting her elders. Later that evening, Marilla fills Matthew in. Matthew says he wouldn't give a dog he likes to Mrs. Blewett. Marilla tells Matthew she's cool with Anne staying, but makes him promise he won't interfere with her parenting methods, which is pretty much a dream for Matthew. He gets to hang out with Anne without doing the hard stuff. Marilla decides not to tell Anne until the next day.

