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orphan in an asylum, so you canā€™t possibly understand what it is like. Itā€™s worse than anything you could imagine. Mrs. Spencer said it was wicked of me to talk like that, but I didnā€™t mean to be wicked. Itā€™s so easy to be wicked without knowing it, isnā€™t it? They were good, you knowā€”the asylum people. But there is so little scope for the imagination in an asylumā€”only just in the other orphans. It was pretty interesting to imagine things about themā€”to imagine that perhaps the girl who sat next to you was really the daughter of a belted earl, who had been stolen away from her parents in her infancy by a cruel nurse who died before she could confess. I used to lie awake at nights and imagine things like that, because I didnā€™t have time in the day. I guess thatā€™s why Iā€™m so thinā€”I AM dreadful thin, ainā€™t I? There isnā€™t a pick on my bones. I do love to imagine Iā€™m nice and plump, with dimples in my elbows.ā€

With this Matthewā€™s companion stopped talking, partly because she was out of breath and partly because they had reached the buggy. Not another word did she say until they had left the village and were driving down a steep little hill, the road part of which had been cut so deeply into the soft soil, that the banks, fringed with blooming wild cherry-trees and slim white birches, were several feet above their heads.

The child put out her hand and broke off a branch of wild plum that brushed against the side of the buggy.

ā€œIsnā€™t that beautiful? What did that tree, leaning out from the bank, all white and lacy, make you think of?ā€ she asked.

ā€œWell now, I dunno,ā€ said Matthew.

ā€œWhy, a bride, of courseā€”a bride all in white with a lovely misty veil. Iā€™ve never seen one, but I can imagine what she would look like. I donā€™t ever expect to be a bride myself. Iā€™m so homely nobody will ever want to marry meā€” unless it might be a foreign missionary. I suppose a foreign missionary mightnā€™t be very particular. But I do hope that some day I shall have a white dress. That is my highest ideal of earthly bliss. I just love pretty clothes. And Iā€™ve never had a pretty dress in my life that I can rememberā€”but of course itā€™s all the more to look forward to, isnā€™t it? And then I can imagine that Iā€™m dressed gorgeously. This morning when I left the asylum I felt so ashamed because I had to wear this horrid old wincey dress. All the orphans had to wear them, you know. A merchant in Hopeton last winter donated three hundred yards of wincey to the asylum. Some people said it was because he couldnā€™t sell it, but Iā€™d rather believe that it was out of the kindness of his heart, wouldnā€™t you? When we got on the train I felt as if everybody must be looking at me and pitying me. But I just went to work and imagined that I had on the most beautiful pale blue silk dressā€”because when you ARE imagining you might as well imagine something worth whileā€”and a big hat all flowers and nodding plumes, and a gold watch, and kid gloves and boots. I felt cheered up right away and I enjoyed my trip to the Island with all my might. I wasnā€™t a bit sick coming over in the boat. Neither was Mrs. Spencer although she generally is. She said she hadnā€™t time to get sick, watching to see that I didnā€™t fall overboard. She said she never saw the beat of me for prowling about. But if it kept her from being seasick itā€™s a mercy I did prowl, isnā€™t it? And I wanted to see everything that was to be seen on that boat, because I didnā€™t know whether Iā€™d ever have another opportunity. Oh, there are a lot more cherry-trees all in bloom! This Island is the bloomiest place. I just love it already, and Iā€™m so glad Iā€™m going to live here. Iā€™ve always heard that Prince Edward Island was the prettiest place in the world, and I used to imagine I was living here, but I never really expected I would. Itā€™s delightful when your imaginations come true, isnā€™t it? But those red roads are so funny. When we got into the train at Charlottetown and the red roads began to flash past I asked Mrs. Spencer what made them red and she said she didnā€™t know and for pityā€™s sake not to ask her any more questions. She said I must have asked her a thousand already. I suppose I had, too, but how you going to find out about things if you donā€™t ask questions? And what DOES make the roads red?ā€

ā€œWell now, I dunno,ā€ said Matthew.

ā€œWell, that is one of the things to find out sometime. Isnā€™t it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad to be aliveā€” itā€™s such an interesting world. It wouldnā€™t be half so interesting if we know all about everything, would it? Thereā€™d be no scope for imagination then, would there? But am I talking too much? People are always telling me I do. Would you rather I didnā€™t talk? If you say so Iā€™ll stop. I can STOP when I make up my mind to it, although itā€™s difficult.ā€

Matthew, much to his own surprise, was enjoying himself. Like most quiet folks he liked talkative people when they were willing to do the talking themselves and did not expect him to keep up his end of it. But he had never expected to enjoy the society of a little girl. Women were bad enough in all conscience, but little girls were worse. He detested the way they had of sidling past him timidly, with sidewise glances, as if they expected him to gobble them up at a mouthful if they ventured to say a word. That was the Avonlea type of well-bred little girl. But this freckled witch was very different, and although he found it rather difficult for his slower intelligence to keep up with her brisk mental processes he thought that he ā€œkind of liked her chatter.ā€ So he said as shyly as usual:

ā€œOh, you can talk as much as you like. I donā€™t mind.ā€

ā€œOh, Iā€™m so glad. I know you and I are going to get along together fine. Itā€™s such a relief to talk when one wants to and not be told that children should be seen and not heard. Iā€™ve had that said to me a million times if I have once. And people laugh at me because I use big words. But if you have big ideas you have to use big words to express them, havenā€™t you?ā€

ā€œWell now, that seems reasonable,ā€ said Matthew.

ā€œMrs. Spencer said that my tongue must be hung in the middle. But it isnā€™tā€”itā€™s firmly fastened at one end. Mrs. Spencer said your place was named Green Gables. I asked her all about it. And she said there were trees all around it. I was gladder than ever. I just love trees. And there werenā€™t any at all about the asylum, only a few poor weeny-teeny things out in front with little whitewashed cagey things about them. They just looked like orphans themselves, those trees did. It used to make me want to cry to look at them. I used to say to them, `Oh, you POOR little things! If you were out in a great big woods with other trees all around you and little mosses and Junebells growing over your roots and a brook not far away and birds singing in you branches, you could grow, couldnā€™t you? But you canā€™t where you are. I know just exactly how you feel, little trees.ā€™ I felt sorry to leave them behind this morning. You do get so attached to things like that, donā€™t you? Is there a brook anywhere near Green Gables? I forgot to ask Mrs. Spencer that.ā€

ā€œWell now, yes, thereā€™s one right below the house.ā€

ā€œFancy. Itā€™s always been one of my dreams to live near a brook. I never expected I would, though. Dreams donā€™t often come true, do they? Wouldnā€™t it be nice if they did? But just now I feel pretty nearly perfectly happy. I canā€™t feel exactly perfectly happy becauseā€”well, what color would you call this?ā€

She twitched one of her long glossy braids over her thin shoulder and held it up before Matthewā€™s eyes. Matthew was not used to deciding on the tints of ladiesā€™ tresses, but in this case there couldnā€™t be much doubt.

ā€œItā€™s red, ainā€™t it?ā€ he said.

The girl let the braid drop back with a sigh that seemed to come from her very toes and to exhale forth all the sorrows of the ages.

ā€œYes, itā€™s red,ā€ she said resignedly. ā€œNow you see why I canā€™t be perfectly happy. Nobody could who has red hair. I donā€™t mind the other things so muchā€”the freckles and the green eyes and my skinniness. I can imagine them away. I can imagine that I have a beautiful rose-leaf complexion and lovely starry violet eyes. But I CANNOT imagine that red hair away. I do my best. I think to myself, `Now my hair is a glorious black, black as the ravenā€™s wing.ā€™ But all the time I KNOW it is just plain red and it breaks my heart. It will be my lifelong sorrow. I read of a girl once in a novel who had a lifelong sorrow but it wasnā€™t red hair. Her hair was pure gold rippling back from her alabaster brow. What is an alabaster brow? I never could find out. Can you tell me?ā€

ā€œWell now, Iā€™m afraid I canā€™t,ā€ said Matthew, who was getting a little dizzy. He felt as he had once felt in his rash youth when another boy had enticed him on the merry-go- round at a picnic.

ā€œWell, whatever it was it must have been something nice because she was divinely beautiful. Have you ever imagined what it must feel like to be divinely beautiful?ā€

ā€œWell now, no, I havenā€™t,ā€ confessed Matthew ingenuously.

ā€œI have, often. Which would you rather be if you had the choiceā€”divinely beautiful or dazzlingly clever or angelically good?ā€

ā€œWell now, Iā€”I donā€™t know exactly.ā€

ā€œNeither do I. I can never decide. But it doesnā€™t make much real difference for it isnā€™t likely Iā€™ll ever be either. Itā€™s certain Iā€™ll never be angelically good. Mrs. Spencer saysā€”oh, Mr. Cuthbert! Oh, Mr. Cuthbert!! Oh, Mr. Cuthbert!!!ā€

That was not what Mrs. Spencer had said; neither had the child tumbled out of the buggy nor had Matthew done anything astonishing. They had simply rounded a curve in the road and found themselves in the ā€œAvenue.ā€

The ā€œAvenue,ā€ so called by the Newbridge people, was a stretch of road four or five hundred yards long, completely arched over with huge, wide-spreading apple-trees, planted years ago by an eccentric old farmer. Overhead was one long canopy of snowy fragrant bloom. Below the boughs the air was full of a purple twilight and far ahead a glimpse of painted sunset sky shone like a great rose window at the end of a cathedral aisle.

Its beauty seemed to strike the child dumb. She leaned back in the buggy, her thin hands clasped before her, her face lifted rapturously to the white splendor above. Even when they had passed out and were driving down the long slope to Newbridge she never moved or spoke. Still with rapt face she gazed afar into the sunset west, with eyes that saw visions trooping splendidly across that glowing background. Through Newbridge, a bustling little village where dogs barked at them and small boys hooted and curious

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