Lucy Maud Montgomery, The Woman Behind The Books - Memoirs & Private Letters (Including The Complete Anne of Green Gables Series, Emily Starr Trilogy & The Blue Castle). Lucy Maud Montgomery
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a life must have been of adventure! And as for his personal qualities, I’m sure human eulogy couldn’t go further. I wonder if they told him he was all those best things while he was alive.”
“Here’s another,” said Priscilla. “Listen —
‘To the memory of Alexander Ross, who died on the 22nd of September, 1840, aged 43 years. This is raised as a tribute of affection by one whom he served so faithfully for 27 years that he was regarded as a friend, deserving the fullest confidence and attachment.’”
“A very good epitaph,” commented Anne thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t wish a better. We are all servants of some sort, and if the fact that we are faithful can be truthfully inscribed on our tombstones nothing more need be added. Here’s a sorrowful little gray stone, Prissy—’to the memory of a favorite child.’ And here is another ‘erected to the memory of one who is buried elsewhere.’ I wonder where that unknown grave is. Really, Pris, the graveyards of today will never be as interesting as this. You were right — I shall come here often. I love it already. I see we’re not alone here — there’s a girl down at the end of this avenue.”
“Yes, and I believe it’s the very girl we saw at Redmond this morning. I’ve been watching her for five minutes. She has started to come up the avenue exactly half a dozen times, and half a dozen times has she turned and gone back. Either she’s dreadfully shy or she has got something on her conscience. Let’s go and meet her. It’s easier to get acquainted in a graveyard than at Redmond, I believe.”
They walked down the long grassy arcade towards the stranger, who was sitting on a gray slab under an enormous willow. She was certainly very pretty, with a vivid, irregular, bewitching type of prettiness. There was a gloss as of brown nuts on her satin-smooth hair and a soft, ripe glow on her round cheeks. Her eyes were big and brown and velvety, under oddly-pointed black brows, and her crooked mouth was rose-red. She wore a smart brown suit, with two very modish little shoes peeping from beneath it; and her hat of dull pink straw, wreathed with golden-brown poppies, had the indefinable, unmistakable air which pertains to the “creation” of an artist in millinery. Priscilla had a sudden stinging consciousness that her own hat had been trimmed by her village store milliner, and Anne wondered uncomfortably if the blouse she had made herself, and which Mrs. Lynde had fitted, looked VERY countrified and homemade besides the stranger’s smart attire. For a moment both girls felt like turning back.
But they had already stopped and turned towards the gray slab. It was too late to retreat, for the browneyed girl had evidently concluded that they were coming to speak to her. Instantly she sprang up and came forward with outstretched hand and a gay, friendly smile in which there seemed not a shadow of either shyness or burdened conscience.
“Oh, I want to know who you two girls are,” she exclaimed eagerly. “I’ve been DYING to know. I saw you at Redmond this morning. Say, wasn’t it AWFUL there? For the time I wished I had stayed home and got married.”
Anne and Priscilla both broke into unconstrained laughter at this unexpected conclusion. The browneyed girl laughed, too.
“I really did. I COULD have, you know. Come, let’s all sit down on this gravestone and get acquainted. It won’t be hard. I know we’re going to adore each other — I knew it as soon as I saw you at Redmond this morning. I wanted so much to go right over and hug you both.”
“Why didn’t you?” asked Priscilla.
“Because I simply couldn’t make up my mind to do it. I never can make up my mind about anything myself — I’m always afflicted with indecision. Just as soon as I decide to do something I feel in my bones that another course would be the correct one. It’s a dreadful misfortune, but I was born that way, and there is no use in blaming me for it, as some people do. So I couldn’t make up my mind to go and speak to you, much as I wanted to.”
“We thought you were too shy,” said Anne.
“No, no, dear. Shyness isn’t among the many failings — or virtues — of Philippa Gordon — Phil for short. Do call me Phil right off. Now, what are your handles?”
“She’s Priscilla Grant,” said Anne, pointing.
“And SHE’S Anne Shirley,” said Priscilla, pointing in turn.
“And we’re from the Island,” said both together.
“I hail from Bolingbroke, Nova Scotia,” said Philippa.
“Bolingbroke!” exclaimed Anne. “Why, that is where I was born.”
“Do you really mean it? Why, that makes you a Bluenose after all.”
“No, it doesn’t,” retorted Anne. “Wasn’t it Dan O’Connell who said that if a man was born in a stable it didn’t make him a horse? I’m Island to the core.”
“Well, I’m glad you were born in Bolingbroke anyway. It makes us kind of neighbors, doesn’t it? And I like that, because when I tell you secrets it won’t be as if I were telling them to a stranger. I have to tell them. I can’t keep secrets — it’s no use to try. That’s my worst failing — that, and indecision, as aforesaid. Would you believe it? — it took me half an hour to decide which hat to wear when I was coming here — HERE, to a graveyard! At first I inclined to my brown one with the feather; but as soon as I put it on I thought this pink one with the floppy brim would be more becoming. When I got IT pinned in place I liked the brown one better. At last I put them close together on the bed, shut my eyes, and jabbed with a hat pin. The pin speared the pink one, so I put it on. It is becoming, isn’t it? Tell me, what do you think of my looks?”
At this naive demand, made in a perfectly serious tone, Priscilla laughed again. But Anne said, impulsively squeezing Philippa’s hand,
“We thought this morning that you were the prettiest girl we saw at Redmond.”
Philippa’s crooked mouth flashed into a bewitching, crooked smile over very white little teeth.
“I thought that myself,” was her next astounding statement, “but I wanted some one else’s opinion to bolster mine up. I can’t decide even on my own appearance. Just as soon as I’ve decided that I’m pretty I begin to feel miserably that I’m not. Besides, have a horrible old great-aunt who is always saying to me, with a mournful sigh, ‘You were such a pretty baby. It’s strange how children change when they grow up.’ I adore aunts, but I detest great-aunts. Please tell me quite often that I am pretty, if you don’t mind. I feel so much more comfortable when I can believe I’m pretty. And I’ll be just as obliging to you if you want me to — I CAN be, with a clear conscience.”
“Thanks,” laughed Anne, “but Priscilla and I are so firmly convinced of our own good looks that we don’t need any assurance about them, so you needn’t trouble.”
“Oh, you’re laughing at me. I know you think I’m abominably vain, but I’m not. There really isn’t one spark of vanity in me. And I’m never a bit grudging about paying compliments to other girls when they deserve them. I’m so glad I know you folks. I came up on Saturday and I’ve nearly died of homesickness ever since. It’s a horrible feeling, isn’t it? In Bolingbroke I’m an important personage, and in Kingsport I’m just nobody! There were times when I could feel my soul turning a delicate blue. Where do you hang out?”
“Thirty-eight St. John’s Street.”
“Better and better. Why, I’m just around the corner on Wallace Street. I don’t like my boardinghouse, though. It’s bleak and lonesome, and my room looks out on such an unholy back yard. It’s the ugliest place in the world. As for cats — well, surely ALL the Kingsport cats can’t congregate there at night, but half of them must. I adore cats on hearth rugs, snoozing before nice, friendly fires, but cats in back yards at midnight are totally different animals. The first night I was here I cried all night, and so did the cats. You should have seen my nose in the morning. How I wished I had never left home!”
“I don’t know how you managed to make up your mind to