call me just plain Marilla. I’m not used to being called Miss Cuthbert and it would make me nervous.”
“It sounds awfully disrespectful to just say Marilla,” protested Anne.
“I guess there’ll be nothing disrespectful in it if you’re careful to speak respectfully. Everybody, young and old, in Avonlea calls me Marilla except the minister. He says Miss Cuthbert — when he thinks of it.”
“I’d love to call you Aunt Marilla,” said Anne wistfully. “I’ve never had an aunt or any relation at all — not even a grandmother. It would make me feel as if I really belonged to you. Can’t I call you Aunt Marilla?”
“No. I’m not your aunt and I don’t believe in calling people names that don’t belong to them.”
“But we could imagine you were my aunt.”
“I couldn’t,” said Marilla grimly.
“Do you never imagine things different from what they really are?” asked Anne wide-eyed.
“No.”
“Oh!” Anne drew a long breath. “Oh, Miss — Marilla, how much you miss!”
“I don’t believe in imagining things different from what they really are,” retorted Marilla. “When the Lord puts us in certain circumstances He doesn’t mean for us to imagine them away. And that reminds me. Go into the sitting room, Anne — be sure your feet are clean and don’t let any flies in — and bring me out the illustrated card that’s on the mantelpiece. The Lord’s Prayer is on it and you’ll devote your spare time this afternoon to learning it off by heart. There’s to be no more of such praying as I heard last night.”
“I suppose I was very awkward,” said Anne apologetically, “but then, you see, I’d never had any practice. You couldn’t really expect a person to pray very well the first time she tried, could you? I thought out a splendid prayer after I went to bed, just as I promised you I would. It was nearly as long as a minister’s and so poetical. But would you believe it? I couldn’t remember one word when I woke up this morning. And I’m afraid I’ll never be able to think out another one as good. Somehow, things never are so good when they’re thought out a second time. Have you ever noticed that?”
“Here is something for you to notice, Anne. When I tell you to do a thing I want you to obey me at once and not stand stock-still and discourse about it. Just you go and do as I bid you.”
Anne promptly departed for the sitting-room across the hall; she failed to return; after waiting ten minutes Marilla laid down her knitting and marched after her with a grim expression. She found Anne standing motionless before a picture hanging on the wall between the two windows, with her eyes astar with dreams. The white and green light strained through apple trees and clustering vines outside fell over the rapt little figure with a half-unearthly radiance.
“Anne, whatever are you thinking of?” demanded Marilla sharply.
Anne came back to earth with a start.
“That,” she said, pointing to the picture — a rather vivid chromo entitled, “Christ Blessing Little Children”—”and I was just imagining I was one of them — that I was the little girl in the blue dress, standing off by herself in the corner as if she didn’t belong to anybody, like me. She looks lonely and sad, don’t you think? I guess she hadn’t any father or mother of her own. But she wanted to be blessed, too, so she just crept shyly up on the outside of the crowd, hoping nobody would notice her — except Him. I’m sure I know just how she felt. Her heart must have beat and her hands must have got cold, like mine did when I asked you if I could stay. She was afraid He mightn’t notice her. But it’s likely He did, don’t you think? I’ve been trying to imagine it all out — her edging a little nearer all the time until she was quite close to Him; and then He would look at her and put His hand on her hair and oh, such a thrill of joy as would run over her! But I wish the artist hadn’t painted Him so sorrowful looking. All His pictures are like that, if you’ve noticed. But I don’t believe He could really have looked so sad or the children would have been afraid of Him.”
“Anne,” said Marilla, wondering why she had not broken into this speech long before, “you shouldn’t talk that way. It’s irreverent — positively irreverent.”
Anne’s eyes marveled.
“Why, I felt just as reverent as could be. I’m sure I didn’t mean to be irreverent.”
“Well I don’t suppose you did — but it doesn’t sound right to talk so familiarly about such things. And another thing, Anne, when I send you after something you’re to bring it at once and not fall into mooning and imagining before pictures. Remember that. Take that card and come right to the kitchen. Now, sit down in the corner and learn that prayer off by heart.”
Anne set the card up against the jugful of apple blossoms she had brought in to decorate the dinnertable — Marilla had eyed that decoration askance, but had said nothing — propped her chin on her hands, and fell to studying it intently for several silent minutes.
“I like this,” she announced at length. “It’s beautiful. I’ve heard it before — I heard the superintendent of the asylum Sunday school say it over once. But I didn’t like it then. He had such a cracked voice and he prayed it so mournfully. I really felt sure he thought praying was a disagreeable duty. This isn’t poetry, but it makes me feel just the same way poetry does. ‘Our Father who art in heaven hallowed be Thy name.’ That is just like a line of music. Oh, I’m so glad you thought of making me learn this, Miss — Marilla.”
“Well, learn it and hold your tongue,” said Marilla shortly.
Anne tipped the vase of apple blossoms near enough to bestow a soft kiss on a pink-cupped bud, and then studied diligently for some moments longer.
“Marilla,” she demanded presently, “do you think that I shall ever have a bosom friend in Avonlea?”
“A — a what kind of friend?”
“A bosom friend — an intimate friend, you know — a really kindred spirit to whom I can confide my inmost soul. I’ve dreamed of meeting her all my life. I never really supposed I would, but so many of my loveliest dreams have come true all at once that perhaps this one will, too. Do you think it’s possible?”
“Diana Barry lives over at Orchard Slope and she’s about your age. She’s a very nice little girl, and perhaps she will be a playmate for you when she comes home. She’s visiting her aunt over at Carmody just now. You’ll have to be careful how you behave yourself, though. Mrs. Barry is a very particular woman. She won’t let Diana play with any little girl who isn’t nice and good.”
Anne looked at Marilla through the apple blossoms, her eyes aglow with interest.
“What is Diana like? Her hair isn’t red, is it? Oh, I hope not. It’s bad enough to have red hair myself, but I positively couldn’t endure it in a bosom friend.”
“Diana is a very pretty little girl. She has black eyes and hair and rosy cheeks. And she is good and smart, which is better than being pretty.”
Marilla was as fond of morals as the Duchess in Wonderland, and was firmly convinced that one should be tacked on to every remark made to a child who was being brought up.
But
