Marilla really did not know how to talk to the child, and her uncomfortable ignorance
made her crisp and curt when she did not mean to be.
Anne stood up and drew a long breath.
"Oh, isn't it wonderful?" she said, waving her hand comprehensively at the good world
outside.
"It's a big tree," said Marilla, "and it blooms great, but the fruit don't amount to much
never--small and wormy."
"Oh, I don't mean just the tree; of course it's lovely--yes, it's RADIANTLY lovely--it
blooms as if it meant it--but I meant everything, the garden and the orchard and the
brook and the woods, the whole big dear world. Don't you feel as if you just loved the
world on a morning like this? And I can hear the brook laughing all the way up here.
Have you ever noticed what cheerful things brooks are? They're always laughing. Even
in winter-time I've heard them under the ice. I'm so glad there's a brook near Green
Gables. Perhaps you think it doesn't make any difference to me when you're not going
to keep me, but it does. I shall always like to remember that there is a brook at Green
Gables even if I never see it again. If there wasn't a brook I'd be HAUNTED by the
uncomfortable feeling that there ought to be one. I'm not in the depths of despair this
morning. I never can be in the morning. Isn't it a splendid thing that there are mornings?
But I feel very sad. I've just been imagining that it was really me you wanted after all and
that I was to stay here for ever and ever. It was a great comfort while it lasted. But the
worst of imagining things is that the time comes when you have to stop and that hurts."
"You'd better get dressed and come down-stairs and never mind your imaginings," said
Marilla as soon as she could get a word in edgewise. "Breakfast is waiting. Wash your
face and comb your hair. Leave the window up and turn your bedclothes back over the
foot of the bed. Be as smart as you can."
Anne could evidently be smart to some purpose for she was down-stairs in ten minutes'
time, with her clothes neatly on, her hair brushed and braided, her face washed, and a
comfortable consciousness pervading her soul that she had fulfilled all Marilla's
requirements. As a matter of fact, however, she had forgotten to turn back the
bedclothes.
"I'm pretty hungry this morning," she announced as she slipped into the chair Marilla
placed for her. "The world doesn't seem such a howling wilderness as it did last night.
I'm so glad it's a sunshiny morning. But I like rainy mornings real well, too. All sorts of
mornings are interesting, don't you think? You don't know what's going to happen
through the day, and there's so much scope for imagination. But I'm glad it's not rainy
today because it's easier to be cheerful and bear up under affliction on a sunshiny day. I
feel that I have a good deal to bear up under. It's all very well to read about sorrows and
imagine yourself living through them heroically, but it's not so nice when you really come
to have them, is it?"
