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But it IS real and we're nearly home."

With a sigh of rapture she relapsed into silence.

Matthew stirred uneasily.

He felt glad that it would be Marilla and not he who would have to tell this waif of the world that the home she longed for was not to be hers after all.

They drove over Lynde's Hollow, where it was already quite dark, but not so dark that Mrs. Rachel could not see them from her window vantage, and up the hill and into the long lane of Green Gables.

By the time they arrived at the house Matthew was shrinking from the approaching revelation with an energy he did not understand.

It was not of Marilla or himself he was thinking of the trouble this mistake was probably going to make for them, but of the child's disappointment.

When he thought of that rapt light being quenched in her eyes he had an uncomfortable feeling that he was going to assist at murdering something-much the same feeling that came over him when he had to kill a lamb or calf or any other innocent little creature.

The yard was quite dark as they turned into it and the poplar leaves were rustling silkily all round it.

"Listen to the trees talking in their sleep," she whispered, as he lifted her to the ground. "What nice dreams they must have!"

Then, holding tightly to the carpet-bag which contained "all her worldly goods," she followed him into the house.

Marilla came briskly forward as Matthew opened the door. But when her eyes fell of the odd little figure in the stiff, ugly dress, with the long braids of red hair and the eager, luminous eyes, she stopped short in amazement.

"Matthew Cuthbert, who's that?" she ejaculated. "Where is the boy?"

"There wasn't any boy," said Matthew wretchedly. "There was only HER."

He nodded at the child, remembering that he had never even asked her name.

"No boy! But there MUST have been a boy," insisted Marilla. "We sent word to Mrs. Spencer to bring a boy."

"Well, she didn't. She brought HER. I asked the station-master. And I had to bring her home. She couldn't be left there, no matter where the mistake had come in."

"Well, this is a pretty piece of business!" ejaculated Marilla.

During this dialogue the child had remained silent, her eyes roving from one to the other, all the animation fading out of her face. Suddenly she seemed to grasp the full meaning of what had been said. Dropping her precious carpet-bag she sprang forward a step and clasped her hands.

"You don't want me!" she cried. "You don't want me because I'm not a boy! I might have expected it. Nobody ever did want me. I might have known it was all too beautiful to last. I might have known nobody really did want me. Oh, what shall I do? I'm going to burst into tears!"

Burst into tears she did.

Sitting down on a chair by the table, flinging her arms out upon it, and burying her face in them, she proceeded to cry stormily.

Marilla and Matthew looked at each other deprecatingly across the stove.

Neither of them knew what to say or do.

CHAPTER III. Marilla Cuthbert is Surprised

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