She had not seen Roy again after their painful parting in the park pavilion; but Dorothy came to see her before she left Kingsport.
“I’m awfully3 sorry you won’t marry Roy,” she said. “I did want you for a sister. But you are quite right. He would bore you to death. I love him, and he is a dear sweet boy, but really he isn’t a bit interesting. He looks as if he ought to be, but he isn’t.”
“This won’t spoil OUR friendship, will it, Dorothy?” Anne had asked wistfully.
“No, indeed. You’re too good to lose. If I can’t have you for a sister I mean to keep you as a chum anyway. And don’t fret4 over Roy. He is feeling terribly just now—I have to listen to his outpourings every day—but he’ll get over it. He always does.”
“Oh—ALWAYS?” said Anne with a slight change of voice. “So he has ‘got over it’ before?”
“Dear me, yes,” said Dorothy frankly5. “Twice before. And he raved6 to me just the same both times. Not that the others actually refused him—they simply announced their engagements to some one else. Of course, when he met you he vowed7 to me that he had never really loved before—that the previous affairs had been merely boyish fancies. But I don’t think you need worry.”
Anne decided9 not to worry. Her feelings were a mixture of relief and resentment10. Roy had certainly told her she was the only one he had ever loved. No doubt he believed it. But it was a comfort to feel that she had not, in all likelihood, ruined his life. There were other goddesses, and Roy, according to Dorothy, must needs be worshipping at some shrine11. Nevertheless, life was stripped of several more illusions, and Anne began to think drearily12 that it seemed rather bare.
She came down from the porch gable on the evening of her return with a sorrowful face.
“What has happened to the old Snow Queen, Marilla?”
“Oh, I knew you’d feel bad over that,” said Marilla. “I felt bad myself. That tree was there ever since I was a young girl. It blew down in the big gale13 we had in March. It was rotten at the core.”
“I’ll miss it so,” grieved Anne. “The porch gable doesn’t seem the same room without it. I’ll never look from its window again without a sense of loss. And oh, I never came home to Green Gables before that Diana wasn’t here to welcome me.”
“Diana has something else to think of just now,” said Mrs. Lynde significantly.
“Well, tell me all the Avonlea news,” said Anne, sitting down on the porch steps, where the evening sunshine fell over her hair in a fine golden rain.
“There isn’t much news except what we’ve wrote you,” said Mrs. Lynde. “I suppose you haven’t heard that Simon Fletcher broke his leg last week. It’s a great thing for his family. They’re getting a hundred things done that they’ve always wanted to do but couldn’t as long as he was about, the old crank.”
“He came of an aggravating14 family,” remarked Marilla.
“Aggravating? Well, rather! His mother used to get up in prayer-meeting and tell all her children’s shortcomings and ask prayers for them. ‘Course it made them mad, and worse than ever.”
“You haven’t told Anne the news about Jane,” suggested Marilla.
“Oh, Jane,” sniffed15 Mrs. Lynde. “Well,” she conceded grudgingly16, “Jane Andrews is home from the West—came last week—and she’s going to be married to a Winnipeg millionaire. You may be sure Mrs. Harmon lost no time in telling it far and wide.”
“Oh, I ain’t saying anything against Jane. She’s a nice enough girl. But she isn’t in the millionaire class, and you’ll find there’s not much to recommend that man but his money, that’s what. Mrs. Harmon says he’s an Englishman who has made money in mines but I believe he’ll turn out to be a Yankee. He certainly must have money, for he has just showered Jane with jewelry18. Her engagement ring is a diamond cluster so big that it looks like a plaster on Jane’s fat paw.”
Mrs. Lynde could not keep some bitterness out of her tone. Here was Jane Andrews, that plain little plodder19, engaged to a millionaire, while Anne, it seemed, was not yet bespoken20 by any one, rich or poor. And Mrs. Harmon Andrews did brag21 insufferably.
“What has Gilbert Blythe been doing to at college?” asked Marilla. “I saw him when he came home last week, and he is so pale and thin I hardly knew him.”
“He studied very hard last winter,” said Anne. “You know he took High Honors in Classics and the Cooper Prize. It hasn’t been taken for five years! So I think he’s rather run down. We’re all a little tired.”
“Anyhow, you’re a B.A. and Jane Andrews isn’t and never will be,” said Mrs. Lynde, with gloomy satisfaction.
A few evenings later Anne went down to see Jane, but the latter was away in Charlottetown—“getting sewing done,” Mrs. Harmon informed Anne proudly. “Of course an Avonlea dressmaker wouldn’t do for Jane under the circumstances.”
“I’ve heard something very nice about Jane,” said Anne.
“Yes, Jane has done pretty well, even if she isn’t a B.A.,” said Mrs. Harmon, with a slight toss of her head. “Mr. Inglis is worth millions, and they’re going to Europe on their wedding tour. When they come back they’ll live in a perfect mansion22 of marble in Winnipeg. Jane has only one trouble—she can cook so well and her husband won’t let her cook. He is so rich he hires his cooking done. They’re going to keep a cook and two other maids and a coachman and a man-of-all-work. But what about YOU, Anne? I don’t hear anything of your being married, after all your college-going.”
“Oh,” laughed Anne, “I am going to be an old maid. I really can’t find any one to suit me.” It was rather wicked of her. She deliberately23 meant to remind Mrs. Andrews that if she became an old maid it was not because she had not had at least one chance of marriage. But Mrs. Harmon took swift revenge.
“Well, the over-particular girls generally get left, I notice. And what’s this I hear about Gilbert Blythe being engaged to a Miss Stuart? Charlie Sloane tells me she is perfectly24 beautiful. Is it true?”
“I don’t know if it is true that he is engaged to Miss Stuart,” replied Anne, with Spartan25 composure, “but it is certainly true that she is very lovely.”
“I once thought you and Gilbert would have made a match of it,” said Mrs. Harmon. “If you don’t take care, Anne, all of your beaux will slip through your fingers.”
Anne decided not to continue her duel26 with Mrs. Harmon. You could not fence with an antagonist27 who met rapier thrust with blow of battle axe28.
“Since Jane is away,” she said, rising haughtily29, “I don’t think I can stay longer this morning. I’ll come down when she comes home.”
“Do,” said Mrs. Harmon effusively30. “Jane isn’t a bit proud. She just means to associate with her old friends the same as ever. She’ll be real glad to see you.”
Jane’s millionaire arrived the last of May and carried her off in a blaze of splendor31. Mrs. Lynde was spitefully gratified to find that Mr. Inglis was every day of forty, and short and thin and grayish. Mrs. Lynde did not spare him in her enumeration32 of his shortcomings, you may be sure.
“He looks kind and good-hearted,” said Anne loyally, “and I’m sure he thinks the world of Jane.”
“Humph!” said Mrs. Rachel.
Phil Gordon was married the next week and Anne went over to Bolingbroke to be her bridesmaid. Phil made a dainty fairy of a bride, and the Rev8. Jo was so radiant in his happiness that nobody thought him plain.
“We’re going for a lovers’ saunter through the land of Evangeline,” said Phil, “and then we’ll settle down on Patterson Street. Mother thinks it is terrible—she thinks Jo might at least take a church in a decent place. But the wilderness34 of the Patterson slums will blossom like the rose for me if Jo is there. Oh, Anne, I’m so happy my heart aches with it.”
Anne was always glad in the happiness of her friends; but it is sometimes a little lonely to be surrounded everywhere by a happiness that is not your own. And it was just the same when she went back to Avonlea. This time it was Diana who was bathed in the wonderful glory that comes to a woman when her first-born is laid beside her. Anne looked at the white young mother with a certain awe35 that had never entered into her feelings for Diana before. Could this pale woman with the rapture36 in her eyes be the little black-curled, rosy-cheeked Diana she had played with in vanished schooldays? It gave her a queer desolate37 feeling that she herself somehow belonged only in those past years and had no business in the present at all.
“Isn’t he perfectly beautiful?” said Diana proudly.
The little fat fellow was absurdly like Fred—just as round, just as red. Anne really could not say conscientiously38 that she thought him beautiful, but she vowed sincerely that he was sweet and kissable and altogether delightful39.
“Before he came I wanted a girl, so that I could call her ANNE,” said Diana. “But now that little Fred is here I wouldn’t exchange him for a million girls. He just COULDN’T have been anything but his own precious self.”
“‘Every little baby is the sweetest and the best,’” quoted Mrs. Allan gaily40. “If little Anne HAD come you’d have felt just the same about her.”
Mrs. Allan was visiting in Avonlea, for the first time since leaving it. She was as gay and sweet and sympathetic as ever. Her old girl friends had welcomed her back rapturously. The reigning41 minister’s wife was an estimable lady, but she was not exactly a kindred spirit.
“I can hardly wait till he gets old enough to talk,” sighed Diana. “I just long to hear him say ‘mother.’ And oh, I’m determined42 that his first memory of me shall be a nice one. The first memory I have of my mother is of her slapping me for something I had done. I am sure I deserved it, and mother was always a good mother and I love her dearly. But I do wish my first memory of her was nicer.”
“I have just one memory of my mother and it is the sweetest of all my memories,” said Mrs. Allan. “I was five years old, and I had been allowed to go to school one day with my two older sisters. When school came out my sisters went home in different groups, each supposing I was with the other. Instead I had run off with a little girl I had played with at recess43. We went to her home, which was near the school, and began making mud pies. We were having a glorious time when my older sister arrived, breathless and angry.
“‘You naughty girl” she cried, snatching my reluctant hand and dragging me along with her. ‘Come home this minute. Oh, you’re going to catch it! Mother is awful cross. She is going to give you a good whipping.’
“I had never been whipped. Dread44 and terror filled my poor little heart. I have never been so miserable45 in my life as I was on that walk home. I had not meant to be naughty. Phemy Cameron had asked me to go home with her and I had not known it was wrong to go. And now I was to be whipped for it. When we got home my sister dragged me into the kitchen where mother was sitting by the fire in the twilight46. My poor wee legs were trembling so that I could hardly stand. And mother—mother just took me up in her arms, without one word of rebuke47 or harshness, kissed me and held me close to her heart. ‘I was so frightened you were lost, darling,’ she said tenderly. I could see the love shining in her eyes as she looked down on me. She never scolded or reproached me for what I had done—only told me I must never go away again without asking permission. She died very soon afterwards. That is the only memory I have of her. Isn’t it a beautiful one?”
Anne felt lonelier than ever as she walked home, going by way of the Birch Path and Willowmere. She had not walked that way for many moons. It was a darkly-purple bloomy night. The air was heavy with blossom fragrance—almost too heavy. The cloyed48 senses recoiled49 from it as from an overfull cup. The birches of the path had grown from the fairy saplings of old to big trees. Everything had changed. Anne felt that she would be glad when the summer was over and she was away at work again. Perhaps life would not seem so empty then.
“‘I’ve tried the world—it wears no more
The coloring of romance it wore,’”
sighed Anne—and was straightway much comforted by the romance in the idea of the world being denuded50 of romance!
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1
anticlimax
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| n.令人扫兴的结局；突降法 | |
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solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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fret
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| v.(使)烦恼；(使)焦急；(使)腐蚀，(使)磨损 | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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raved
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| v.胡言乱语( rave的过去式和过去分词 )；愤怒地说；咆哮；痴心地说 | |
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vowed
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| 起誓，发誓（vow的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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rev
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| v.发动机旋转，加快速度 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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shrine
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| n.圣地，神龛，庙；v.将...置于神龛内，把...奉为神圣 | |
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drearily
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| 沉寂地，厌倦地，可怕地 | |
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gale
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| n.大风，强风，一阵闹声（尤指笑声等） | |
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aggravating
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| adj.恼人的，讨厌的 | |
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sniffed
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| v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的过去式和过去分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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grudgingly
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heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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jewelry
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| n.（jewllery）（总称）珠宝 | |
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plodder
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| n.沉重行走的人，辛勤工作的人 | |
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bespoken
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| v.预定( bespeak的过去分词 )；订（货）；证明；预先请求 | |
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brag
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| v./n.吹牛，自夸；adj.第一流的 | |
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mansion
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| n.大厦，大楼；宅第 | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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spartan
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| adj.简朴的，刻苦的；n.斯巴达；斯巴达式的人 | |
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duel
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| n./v.决斗；(双方的)斗争 | |
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antagonist
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| n.敌人，对抗者，对手 | |
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axe
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| n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减 | |
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haughtily
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| adv. 傲慢地, 高傲地 | |
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effusively
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| adv.变溢地，热情洋溢地 | |
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31
splendor
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| n.光彩；壮丽，华丽；显赫，辉煌 | |
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enumeration
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| n.计数，列举；细目；详表；点查 | |
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gild
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| vt.给…镀金，把…漆成金色，使呈金色 | |
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wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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rapture
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| n.狂喜；全神贯注；着迷；v.使狂喜 | |
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desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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conscientiously
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| adv.凭良心地；认真地，负责尽职地；老老实实 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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gaily
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| adv.欢乐地，高兴地 | |
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reigning
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| adj.统治的，起支配作用的 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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recess
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| n.短期休息，壁凹（墙上装架子，柜子等凹处） | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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47
rebuke
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| v.指责，非难，斥责 [反]praise | |
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48
cloyed
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| v.发腻，倒胃口( cloy的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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49
recoiled
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| v.畏缩( recoil的过去式和过去分词 )；退缩；报应；返回 | |
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50
denuded
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| adj.[医]变光的，裸露的v.使赤裸( denude的过去式和过去分词 )；剥光覆盖物 | |
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