Chapter XXVIII

A June Evening

“I wonder what it would be like to live in a world where it was always

June,” said Anne, as she came through the spice and bloom of the twilit

orchard to the front door steps, where Marilla and Mrs. Rachel were

sitting, talking over Mrs. Samson Coates’ funeral, which they had

attended that day. Dora sat between them, diligently studying her

lessons; but Davy was sitting tailor-fashion on the grass, looking as

gloomy and depressed as his single dimple would let him.

“You’d get tired of it,” said Marilla, with a sigh.

“I daresay; but just now I feel that it would take me a long time to

get tired of it, if it were all as charming as today. Everything loves

June. Davy-boy, why this melancholy November face in blossom-time?”

“I’m just sick and tired of living,” said the youthful pessimist.

“At ten years? Dear me, how sad!”

“I’m not making fun,” said Davy with dignity. “I’m

dis—dis—discouraged”—bringing out the big word with a valiant effort.

“Why and wherefore?” asked Anne, sitting down beside him.

“’Cause the new teacher that come when Mr. Holmes got sick give me ten

sums to do for Monday. It’ll take me all day tomorrow to do them. It

isn’t fair to have to work Saturdays. Milty Boulter said he wouldn’t do

them, but Marilla says I’ve got to. I don’t like Miss Carson a bit.”

“Don’t talk like that about your teacher, Davy Keith,” said Mrs. Rachel

severely. “Miss Carson is a very fine girl. There is no nonsense about

her.”

“That doesn’t sound very attractive,” laughed Anne. “I like people to

have a little nonsense about them. But I’m inclined to have a better

opinion of Miss Carson than you have. I saw her in prayer-meeting last

night, and she has a pair of eyes that can’t always look sensible. Now,

Davy-boy, take heart of grace. ‘Tomorrow will bring another day’ and

I’ll help you with the sums as far as in me lies. Don’t waste this

lovely hour ’twixt light and dark worrying over arithmetic.”

“Well, I won’t,” said Davy, brightening up. “If you help me with the

sums I’ll have ’em done in time to go fishing with Milty. I wish old

Aunt Atossa’s funeral was tomorrow instead of today. I wanted to go to

it ’cause Milty said his mother said Aunt Atossa would be sure to rise

up in her coffin and say sarcastic things to the folks that come to see

her buried. But Marilla said she didn’t.”

“Poor Atossa laid in her coffin peaceful enough,” said Mrs. Lynde

solemnly. “I never saw her look so pleasant before, that’s what. Well,

there weren’t many tears shed over her, poor old soul. The Elisha

Wrights are thankful to be rid of her, and I can’t say I blame them a

mite.”

“It seems to me a most dreadful thing to go out of the world and not

leave one person behind you who is sorry you are gone,” said Anne,

shuddering.

“Nobody except her parents ever loved poor Atossa, that’s certain, not

even her husband,” averred Mrs. Lynde. “She was his fourth wife. He’d

sort of got into the habit of marrying. He only lived a few years after

he married her. The doctor said he died of dyspepsia, but I shall

always maintain that he died of Atossa’s tongue, that’s what. Poor

soul, she always knew everything about her neighbors, but she never was

very well acquainted with herself. Well, she’s gone anyhow; and I

suppose the next excitement will be Diana’s wedding.”

“It seems funny and horrible to think of Diana’s being married,” sighed

Anne, hugging her knees and looking through the gap in the Haunted Wood

to the light that was shining in Diana’s room.

“I don’t see what’s horrible about it, when she’s doing so well,” said

Mrs. Lynde emphatically. “Fred Wright has a fine farm and he is a model

young man.”

“He certainly isn’t the wild, dashing, wicked, young man Diana once

wanted to marry,” smiled Anne. “Fred is extremely good.”

“That’s just what he ought to be. Would you want Diana to marry a

wicked man? Or marry one yourself?”

“Oh, no. I wouldn’t want to marry anybody who was wicked, but I think

I’d like it if he _could_ be wicked and _wouldn’t_. Now, Fred is

_hopelessly_ good.”

“You’ll have more sense some day, I hope,” said Marilla.

Marilla spoke rather bitterly. She was grievously disappointed. She

knew Anne had refused Gilbert Blythe. Avonlea gossip buzzed over the

fact, which had leaked out, nobody knew how. Perhaps Charlie Sloane had

guessed and told his guesses for truth. Perhaps Diana had betrayed it

to Fred and Fred had been indiscreet. At all events it was known; Mrs.

Blythe no longer asked Anne, in public or private, if she had heard

lately from Gilbert, but passed her by with a frosty bow. Anne, who had

always liked Gilbert’s merry, young-hearted mother, was grieved in

secret over this. Marilla said nothing; but Mrs. Lynde gave Anne many

exasperated digs about it, until fresh gossip reached that worthy lady,

through the medium of Moody Spurgeon MacPherson’s mother, that Anne had

another “beau” at college, who was rich and handsome and good all in

one. After that Mrs. Rachel held her tongue, though she still wished in

her inmost heart that Anne had accepted Gilbert. Riches were all very

well; but even Mrs. Rachel, practical soul though she was, did not

consider them the one essential. If Anne “liked” the Handsome Unknown

better than Gilbert there was nothing more to be said; but Mrs. Rachel

was dreadfully afraid that Anne was going to make the mistake of

marrying for money. Marilla knew Anne too well to fear this; but she

felt that something in the universal scheme of things had gone sadly

awry.

“What is to be, will be,” said Mrs. Rachel gloomily, “and what isn’t to

be happens sometimes. I can’t help believing it’s going to happen in

Anne’s case, if Providence doesn’t interfere, that’s what.” Mrs. Rachel

sighed. She was afraid Providence wouldn’t interfere; and she didn’t

dare to.

Anne had wandered down to the Dryad’s Bubble and was curled up among

the ferns at the root of the big white birch where she and Gilbert had

so often sat in summers gone by. He had gone into the newspaper office

again when college closed, and Avonlea seemed very dull without him. He

never wrote to her, and Anne missed the letters that never came. To be

sure, Roy wrote twice a week; his letters were exquisite compositions

which would have read beautifully in a memoir or biography. Anne felt

herself more deeply in love with him than ever when she read them; but

her heart never gave the queer, quick, painful bound at sight of his

letters which it had given one day when Mrs. Hiram Sloane had handed

her out an envelope addressed in Gilbert’s black, upright handwriting.

Anne had hurried home to the east gable and opened it eagerly—to find a

typewritten copy of some college society report—“only that and nothing

more.” Anne flung the harmless screed across her room and sat down to

write an especially nice epistle to Roy.

Diana was to be married in five more days. The gray house at Orchard

Slope was in a turmoil of baking and brewing and boiling and stewing,

for there was to be a big, old-timey wedding. Anne, of course, was to

be bridesmaid, as had been arranged when they were twelve years old,

and Gilbert was coming from Kingsport to be best man. Anne was enjoying

the excitement of the various preparations, but under it all she

carried a little heartache. She was, in a sense, losing her dear old

chum; Diana’s new home would be two miles from Green Gables, and the

old constant companionship could never be theirs again. Anne looked up

at Diana’s light and thought how it had beaconed to her for many years;

but soon it would shine through the summer twilights no more. Two big,

painful tears welled up in her gray eyes.

“Oh,” she thought, “how horrible it is that people have to grow up—and

marry—and _change!_”