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After tea Mrs. Rachel set out[2]. The big, rambling house – Green Gables – where the Cuthberts lived was not far, it was built at the furthest edge of the other Avonlea houses.
Mrs. Rachel stepped out of the lane into the backyard of Green Gables. She rapped smartly at the kitchen door and stepped in.
Mrs. Rachel closed the door and noticed everything that was on that table. There were three plates, so Marilla expected someone.
"Good evening, Rachel,” Marilla said briskly. "This is a fine evening, isn't it? Won't you sit down?”
Marilla was a tall, thin woman. She looked like a woman of rigid conscience.
"I was afraid,” said Mrs. Rachel, "when I saw Matthew. I thought maybe he went to the doctor's.”
Marilla's lips twitched understandingly.
"Oh, no,” she said. "Matthew went to Bright River. We want to get a little boy from an orphan asylum[3] in Nova Scotia. He'll come on the train tonight.”
Mrs. Rachel was actually shocked.
"Are you serious, Marilla?” she demanded.
"Yes, of course,” said Marilla.
Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert adopt a boy! From an orphan asylum!
"But why? But how…” she demanded disapprovingly.
"Well, we thought about it,” answered Marilla. "Mrs. Spencer was up here one day before Christmas. She said she wanted to get a little girl from the asylum over in Hopeton in the spring. Her cousin lives there. So we thought about a boy. Matthew is not young, you know – he's sixty. He isn't so spry as he once was. His heart troubles him. So we decided to ask Mrs. Spencer to pick us out a good boy when she went over to get her little girl. We want to get a smart boy of about ten or eleven. We had a telegram from Mrs. Spencer today – the mailman brought it from the station. So Matthew went to Bright River to meet him.”
"Well, Marilla, I'll just tell you that I think. You will do a very foolish thing – a risky thing. You don't know what you get. You want to bring a strange child into your house! It was only last week I read in the newspaper how a man and his wife took a boy out of an orphan asylum and he set fire to the house[4] at night!”
Marilla knitted.
"I don't deny there's something in what you say, Rachel. But Matthew wanted to get a boy.”
Mrs. Rachel decided to go up the road to Robert Bell's and tell him the news. So she went away, to Marilla's relief.
Chapter II
Matthew Cuthbert is surprised
Matthew Cuthbert and the sorrel mare jogged comfortably over the eight miles to Bright River. It was a pretty road, the air was sweet with the breath of many apple orchards and meadows. Matthew enjoyed the drive. He dreaded all women except Marilla and Mrs. Rachel. He had an uncomfortable feeling that the mysterious creatures secretly laughed at him. He was an odd-looking personage, with long gray hair that touched his shoulders, and a full, soft brown beard.
When he reached Bright River there was no sign of any train. He thought he was too early, so he tied his horse in the yard of the small Bright River hotel and went over to the station house. The long platform was almost deserted. At the extreme end of it, a girl was waiting for someone or something. Matthew sidled past her as quickly as possible.
Matthew saw the stationmaster, and asked him about the five-thirty train.
"The five-thirty train arrived half an hour ago,” answered that brisk official. "But there was a passenger – a little girl. She's sitting out there. I asked her to go into the ladies' waiting room, but she told me gravely that she preferred to stay outside.”
"I do not expect a girl,” said Matthew blankly. "A boy must be here. Mrs. Spencer brought him from Nova Scotia for me.”
The stationmaster whistled.
"There's some mistake,” he said. "Mrs. Spencer came off the train with that girl and gave her into my charge[5]. She said you and your sister wanted to adopt her from an orphan asylum. That's all I know about it. I haven't got any more orphans hereabouts.”
"I don't understand,” said Matthew helplessly.
"Well, question the girl,” said the station-master carelessly. "She'll be able to explain, that's certain. Maybe they did not have the boys you wanted.”
He hurried away – he was hungry. The unfortunate Matthew looked at the girl. He wanted to demand of her why she wasn't a boy. He groaned and went towards her.
She watched him. Matthew did not look at her, but anyone could see this: a child of about eleven, garbed in a very short, very tight, very ugly dress of yellowish-gray cloth. She wore a faded brown sailor hat and beneath the hat were two braids of very thick red hair. Her face was small, white and thin, also much freckled. Her mouth was large and so were her eyes.
Her chin was very pointed; the big eyes were full of spirit. Her mouth was expressive and her forehead was broad and full.
As soon as she concluded that Matthew came to her she stood up. She grasped with one thin brown hand the handle of a shabby, old-fashioned bag; the other she held out to him.
"I suppose you are Mr. Matthew Cuthbert of Green Gables?” she said in a peculiarly clear, sweet voice. "I'm very glad to see you. I was afraid you wouldn't come for me. I was ready to go down the track to that big wild cherry-tree at the bend, and climb up into it to stay all night. It is lovely to sleep in a wild cherry-tree all white with bloom in the moonshine, don't you think? You can imagine you dwell in marble halls, can't you?”
Matthew took the scrawny little hand awkwardly in his. Then he decided what to do. He could not tell this child with the glowing eyes that there was a mistake. He will take her home and let Marilla do that. She won't stay at Bright River anyhow, so all questions and explanations will be deferred until they are at Green Gables.
"I'm sorry I was late,” he said shyly. "Come along. The horse is over in the yard. Give me your bag.”
"Oh, I can carry it,” the child responded cheerfully. "It isn't heavy. I've got all I have in it, but it isn't heavy. It's an extremely old bag. Oh, I'm very glad to see you, even if it is nice to sleep in a wild cherry-tree. We'll drive a long way, won't we? Mrs. Spencer said it was eight miles. I'm glad because I love it. Oh, it seems so wonderful to live with you and belong to you! The asylum is the worst place in the world. It's worse than anything you can imagine. They were good, you know, the asylum people. But there is so little scope for the imagination[6] in an asylum – only just in the other orphans. It was pretty interesting to imagine things about them – to imagine that perhaps the girl who sat next to you was really the daughter of an earl. And she was stolen away from her parents. I liked to lie awake at nights and imagine things like that, because I didn't have time in the day. I guess that's why I'm so thin – I am dreadful thin, don't you think so? And I love to imagine I'm nice and plump, with dimples in my elbows.”
The child put out her hand and broke off a branch of wild plum that brushed against the side of the buggy.
"Isn't that beautiful? I hope that some day I shall have a nice dress as white as the plum flowers. That is my highest ideal of earthly bliss. I love pretty clothes. And I never had a pretty dress in my life that I can remember. This morning when I left the asylum I felt so ashamed because I wore this horrid old dress. All the orphans wear them, you know. A merchant in Hopeton last winter donated three hundred yards of this cloth to the asylum. Some people said it was because he didn't sell it, but I believe that it was out of the kindness of his heart. Oh, there are many cherry-trees here! This Island is the bloomiest place. I love it already, and I'm so glad to live here. Prince Edward Island is the prettiest place in the world! Those red roads are so funny! And what makes the roads red?”
"Well, I don't know,” said Matthew.
"I