just have to go on forever, prating of King Henry the Eighth’s wives and the inexhaustible resources of the Dominion.”
Anne laughed. It was safe to laugh now, for the bitterness had gone out of Katherine’s voice. It sounded merely rueful and impatient.
“Anyhow, we’re going to be friends … and we’re going to have a jolly ten days here to begin our friendship. I’ve always wanted to be friends with you, Katherine … spelled with a K! I’ve always felt that underneath all your prickles was something that would make you worth while as a friend.”
“So that is what you’ve really thought of me? I’ve often wondered. Well, the leopard will have a go at changing its spots if it’s at all possible. Perhaps it is. I can believe almost anything at this Green Gables of yours. It’s the first place I’ve ever been in that felt like a home. I should like to be more like other people … if it isn’t too late. I’ll even practice a sunny smile for that Gilbert of yours when he arrives tomorrow night. Of course I’ve forgotten how to talk to young men … if I ever knew. He’ll just think me an old-maid gooseberry. I wonder if, when I go to bed tonight, I’ll feel furious with myself for pulling off my mask and letting you see into my shivering soul like this.”
“No, you won’t. You’ll think, ‘I’m glad she’s found out I’m human.’ We’re going to snuggle down among the warm fluffy blankets, probably with two hot-water bottles, for likely Marilla and Mrs. Lynde will each put one in for us for fear the other has forgotten it. And you’ll feel deliciously sleepy after this walk in the frosty moonshine … and first thing you’ll know, it will be morning and you’ll feel as if you were the first person to discover that the sky is blue. And you’ll grow learned in lore of plum puddings because you’re going to help me make one for Tuesday … a great big plummy one.”
Anne was amazed at Katherine’s good looks when they went in. Her complexion was radiant after her long walk in the keen air and color made all the difference in the world to her.
“Why, Katherine would be handsome if she wore the right kind of hats and dresses,” reflected Anne, trying to imagine Katherine with a certain dark, richly red velvet hat she had seen in a Summerside shop, on her black hair and pulled over her amber eyes. “I’ve simply got to see what can be done about it.”
Chapter VI
Saturday and Monday were full of gay doings at Green Gables. The plum pudding was concocted and the Christmas tree brought home. Katherine and Anne and Davy and Dora went to the woods for it … a beautiful little fir to whose cutting down Anne was only reconciled by the fact that it was in a little clearing of Mr. Harrison’s which was going to be stumped and plowed in the spring anyhow.
They wandered about, gathering creeping spruce and ground pine for wreaths … even some ferns that kept green in a certain deep hollow of the woods all winter … until day smiled back at night over white-bosomed hills and they came back to Green Gables in triumph … to meet a tall young man with hazel eyes and the beginnings of a mustache which made him look so much older and maturer that Anne had one awful moment of wondering if it were really Gilbert or a stranger.
Katherine, with a little smile that tried to be sarcastic but couldn’t quite succeed, left them in the parlor and played games with the twins in the kitchen all the evening. To her amazement she found she was enjoying it. And what fun it was to go down cellar with Davy and find that there were really such things as sweet apples still left in the world.
Katherine had never been in a country cellar before and had no idea what a delightful, spooky, shadowy place it could be by candlelight. Life already seemed warmer. For the first time it came home to Katherine that life might be beautiful, even for her.
Davy made enough noise to wake the Seven Sleepers, at an unearthly hour Christmas morning, ringing an old cowbell up and down the stairs. Marilla was horrified at his doing such a thing when there was a guest in the house, but Katherine came down laughing. Somehow, an odd camaraderie had sprung up between her and Davy. She told Anne candidly that she had no use for the impeccable Dora but that Davy was somehow tarred with her own brush.
They opened the parlor and distributed the gifts before breakfast because the twins, even Dora, couldn’t have eaten anything if they hadn’t. Katherine, who had not expected anything except, perhaps, a duty gift from Anne, found herself getting presents from every one. A gay, crocheted afghan from Mrs. Lynde … a sachet of orris root from Dora … a paper-knife from Davy … a basketful of tiny jars of jam and jelly from Marilla … even a little bronze chessy cat for a paper-weight from Gilbert.
And, tied under the tree, curled up on a bit of warm and woolly blanket, a dear little browneyed puppy, with alert, silken ears and an ingratiating tail. A card tied to his neck bore the legend, “From Anne, who dares, after all, to wish you a Merry Christmas.”
Katherine gathered his wriggling little body up in her arms and spoke shakily.
“Anne … he’s a darling! But Mrs. Dennis won’t let me keep him. I asked her if I might get a dog and she refused.”
“I’ve arranged it all with Mrs. Dennis. You’ll find she won’t object. And, anyway, Katherine, you’re not going to be there long. You must find a decent place to live, now that you’ve paid off what you thought were your obligations. Look at the lovely box of stationery Diana sent me. Isn’t it fascinating to look at the blank pages and wonder what will be written on them?”
Mrs. Lynde was thankful it was a white Christmas … there would be no fat graveyards when Christmas was white … but to Katherine it seemed a purple and crimson and golden Christmas. And the week that followed was just as beautiful. Katherine had often wondered bitterly just what it would be like to be happy and now she found out. She bloomed out in the most astonishing way. Anne found herself enjoying their companionship.
“To think I was afraid she would spoil my Christmas holiday!” she reflected in amazement.
“To think,” said Katherine to herself, “that I was on the verge of refusing to come here when Anne invited me!”
They went for long walks … through Lover’s Lane and the Haunted Wood, where the very silence seemed friendly … over hills where the light snow whirled in a winter dance of goblins … through old orchards full of violet shadows … through the glory of sunset woods. There were no birds to chirp or sing, no brooks to gurgle, no squirrels to gossip. But the wind made occasional music that had in quality what it lacked in quantity.
“One can always find something lovely to look at or listen to,” said Anne.
They talked of “cabbages and kings,” and hitched their wagons to stars, and came home with appetites that taxed even the Green Gables pantry. One day it stormed and they couldn’t go out. The east wind was beating around the eaves and the gray gulf was roaring. But even a storm at Green Gables had charms of its own. It was cozy to sit by the stove and dreamily watch the firelight flickering over the ceiling while you munched apples and candy. How jolly supper was with the storm wailing outside!
One night Gilbert took them to see Diana and her new baby daughter.
“I never held a baby in my life before,” said Katherine as they drove home. “For one thing, I didn’t want to, and for another I’d have been afraid of it going to pieces in my grasp. You can’t imagine how I felt … so big and clumsy with that tiny,
