Picture Dictionary & Books : Free for English Learner!

Marilla really did not know how to talk to the child, and her uncomfortable ignorance made her crisp and curt when she did not mean to be.

Anne stood up and drew a long breath.

"Oh, isn't it wonderful?" she said, waving her hand comprehensively at the good world outside.

"It's a big tree," said Marilla, "and it blooms great, but the fruit don't amount to much never-small and wormy."

"Oh, I don't mean just the tree; of course it's lovely-yes, it's RADIANTLY lovely-it blooms as if it meant it-but I meant everything, the garden and the orchard and the brook and the woods, the whole big dear world.

Don't you feel as if you just loved the world on a morning like this? And I can hear the brook laughing all the way up here.

Have you ever noticed what cheerful things brooks are? They're always laughing.

Even in winter-time I've heard them under the ice.

I'm so glad there's a brook near Green Gables.

Perhaps you think it doesn't make any difference to me when you're not going to keep me, but it does.

I shall always like to remember that there is a brook at Green Gables even if I never see it again.

If there wasn't a brook I'd be HAUNTED by the uncomfortable feeling that there ought to be one.

I'm not in the depths of despair this morning.

I never can be in the morning.

Isn't it a splendid thing that there are mornings? But I feel very sad.

I've just been imagining that it was really me you wanted after all and that I was to stay here for ever and ever.

It was a great comfort while it lasted.

But the worst of imagining things is that the time comes when you have to stop and that hurts."

"You'd better get dressed and come down-stairs and never mind your imaginings," said Marilla as soon as she could get a word in edgewise. "Breakfast is waiting. Wash your face and comb your hair. Leave the window up and turn your bedclothes back over the foot of the bed. Be as smart as you can."

Anne could evidently be smart to some purpose for she was down-stairs in ten minutes' time, with her clothes neatly on, her hair brushed and braided, her face washed, and a comfortable consciousness pervading her soul that she had fulfilled all Marilla's requirements.

As a matter of fact, however, she had forgotten to turn back the bedclothes.

"I'm pretty hungry this morning," she announced as she slipped into the chair Marilla placed for her.

"The world doesn't seem such a howling wilderness as it did last night.

I'm so glad it's a sunshiny morning.

But I like rainy mornings real well, too.

Table of Contents