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"Well, I hope it will turn out all right," said Mrs. Rachel in a tone that plainly indicated her painful doubts.

"Only don't say I didn't warn you if he burns Green Gables down or puts strychnine in the well-I heard of a case over in New Brunswick where an orphan asylum child did that and the whole family died in fearful agonies.

Only, it was a girl in that instance."

"Well, we're not getting a girl," said Marilla, as if poisoning wells were a purely feminine accomplishment and not to be dreaded in the case of a boy.

"I'd never dream of taking a girl to bring up.

I wonder at Mrs. Alexander Spencer for doing it.

But there, SHE wouldn't shrink from adopting a whole orphan asylum if she took it into her head."

Mrs. Rachel would have liked to stay until Matthew came home with his imported orphan.

But reflecting that it would be a good two hours at least before his arrival she concluded to go up the road to Robert Bell's and tell the news.

It would certainly make a sensation second to none, and Mrs. Rachel dearly loved to make a sensation.

So she took herself away, somewhat to Marilla's relief, for the latter felt her doubts and fears reviving under the influence of Mrs. Rachel's pessimism.

"Well, of all things that ever were or will be!" ejaculated Mrs. Rachel when she was safely out in the lane.

"It does really seem as if I must be dreaming.

Well, I'm sorry for that poor young one and no mistake.

Matthew and Marilla don't know anything about children and they'll expect him to be wiser and steadier that his own grandfather, if so be's he ever had a grandfather, which is doubtful.

It seems uncanny to think of a child at Green Gables somehow; there's never been one there, for Matthew and Marilla were grown up when the new house was built-if they ever WERE children, which is hard to believe when one looks at them.

I wouldn't be in that orphan's shoes for anything.

My, but I pity him, that's what."

So said Mrs. Rachel to the wild rose bushes out of the fulness of her heart; but if she could have seen the child who was waiting patiently at the Bright River station at that very moment her pity would have been still deeper and more profound.

Matthew Cuthbert and the sorrel mare jogged comfortably over the eight miles to Bright River.

It was a pretty road, running along between snug farmsteads, with now and again a bit of balsamy fir wood to drive through or a hollow where wild plums hung out their filmy bloom.

The air was sweet with the breath of many apple orchards and the meadows sloped away in the distance to horizon mists of pearl and purple; while

"The little birds sang as if it were

The one day of summer in all the year."

CHAPTER II. Matthew Cuthbert is surprised

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