章节正文
killed. Do you know how?"
"Yes."
"Anne, I saw his little face as the wheel went over
him. He fell on his back. Anne--Anne--I can see it
now. I shall always see it. Anne, all I ask of heaven
is that that recollection shall be blotted out of my
memory. O my God!"
"Leslie, don't speak of it. I know the story--don't go
into details that only harrow your soul up
unavailingly. It WILL be blotted out."
After a moment's struggle, Leslie regained a measure of
self- control.
"Then father's health got worse and he grew
despondent--his mind became unbalanced--you've heard
all that, too?"
"Yes."
"After that I had just mother to live for. But I was
very ambitious. I meant to teach and earn my way
through college. I meant to climb to the very top--oh,
I won't talk of that either. It's no use. You know
what happened. I couldn't see my dear little
heart-broken mother, who had been such a slave all her
life, turned out of her home. Of course, I could have
earned enough for us to live on. But mother COULDN'T
leave her home. She had come there as a bride--and she
had loved father so--and all her memories were there.
Even yet, Anne, when I think that I made her last year
happy I'm not sorry for what I did. As for Dick--I
didn't hate him when I married him--I just felt for him
the indifferent, friendly feeling I had for most of my
schoolmates. I knew he drank some--but I had never
heard the story of the girl down at the fishing cove.
If I had, I COULDN'T have married him, even for
mother's sake. Afterwards--I DID hate him--but mother
never knew. She died--and then I was alone. I was
only seventeen and I was alone. Dick had gone off in
the Four Sisters. I hoped he wouldn't be home very
much more. The sea had always been in his blood. I
had no other hope. Well, Captain Jim brought him home,
as you know--and that's all there is to say. You know
me now, Anne--the worst of me--the barriers are all
down. And you still want to be my friend?"
Anne looked up through the birches, at the white
paper-lantern of a half moon drifting downwards to the
gulf of sunset. Her face was very sweet.
"I am your friend and you are mine, for always," she
said. "Such a friend as I never had before. I have
had many dear and beloved friends--but there is a
something in you, Leslie, that I never found in anyone
else. You have more to offer me in that rich nature of
yours, and I have more to give you than I had in my
careless girlhood. We are both women--and friends
forever."
They clasped hands and smiled at each other through the
tears that filled the gray eyes and the blue.
CHAPTER 22
MISS CORNELIA ARRANGES MATTERS
Gilbert insisted that Susan should be kept on at the
little house for the summer. Anne protested at first.
"Life here with just the two of us is so sweet,
Gilbert. It spoils it a little to have anyone else.
Susan is a dear soul, but she is an outsider. It won't
hurt me to do the work here."
"You must take your doctor's advice," said Gilbert.
"There's an old proverb to the effect that shoemakers'
wives go barefoot and doctors' wives die young. I
don't mean that it shall be true in my household. You
will keep Susan until the old spring comes back into
your step, and those little hollows on your cheeks fill
out."
"You just take it easy, Mrs. Doctor, dear," said
Susan, coming abruptly in. "Have a good time and do
not worry about the pantry. Susan is at the helm.
There is no use in keeping a dog and doing your own
barking. I am going to take your breakfast up to you
every morning."
"Indeed you are not," laughed Anne. "I agree with
Miss Cornelia that it's a scandal for a woman who isn't
sick to eat her breakfast in bed, and almost justifies
the men in any enormities."
"Oh, Cornelia!" said Susan, with ineffable contempt.
"I think you have better sense, Mrs. Doctor, dear, than
to heed what Cornelia Bryant says. I cannot see why
she must be always running down the men, even if she is
an old maid. _I_ am an old maid, but you never hear ME
abusing the men. I like 'em. I would have married one
if I could. Is it not funny nobody ever asked me to
marry him, Mrs. Doctor, dear? I am no beauty, but I am
as good-looking as most of the married women you see.
But I never had a beau. What do you suppose is the
reason?"
"It may be predestination," suggested Anne, with
unearthly solemnity.
Susan nodded.
"That is what I have often thought, Mrs. Doctor, dear,
and a great comfort it is. I do not mind nobody
wanting me if the Almighty decreed it so for His own
wise purposes. But sometimes doubt creeps in, Mrs.
Doctor, dear, and I wonder if maybe the Old Scratch has
not more to do with it than anyone else. I cannot feel
resigned THEN. But maybe," added Susan, brightening
up, "I will have a chance to get married yet. I often
and often think of the old verse my aunt used to
repeat:
There never was a goose so gray but sometime soon or
late Some honest gander came her way and took her for
his mate!
A woman cannot ever be sure of not being married till
she is buried, Mrs. Doctor, dear, and meanwhile I will
make a batch of cherry pies. I notice the doctor
favors 'em, and I DO like cooking for a man who
appreciates his victuals."
Miss Cornelia dropped in that afternoon, puffing a
little.
"I don't mind the world or the devil much, but the
flesh DOES rather bother me," she admitted. "You
always look as cool as a cucumber, Anne, dearie. Do I
smell cherry pie? If I do, ask me to stay to tea.
Haven't tasted a cherry pie this summer. My cherries
have all been stolen by those scamps of Gilman boys
from the Glen."
"Now, now, Cornelia," remonstrated Captain Jim, who
had been reading a sea novel in a corner of the living
room, "you shouldn't say that about those two poor,
motherless Gilman boys, unless you've got certain
proof. Jest because their father ain't none too honest
isn't any reason for calling them thieves. It's more
likely it's been the robins took your cherries.
They're turrible thick this year."
"Robins!" said Miss Cornelia disdainfully. "Humph!
Two- legged robins, believe ME!"
"Well, most of the Four Winds robins ARE constructed on
that principle," said Captain Jim gravely.
Miss Cornelia stared at him for a moment. Then she
leaned back in her rocker and laughed long and
ungrudgingly.
"Well, you HAVE got one on me at last, Jim Boyd, I'll
admit. Just look how pleased he is, Anne, dearie,
grinning like a Chessy-cat. As for the robins' legs if
robins have great, big, bare, sunburned legs, with
ragged trousershanging on 'em, such as I saw up in my
cherry tree one morning at sunrise last week, I'll beg
the Gilman boys' pardon. By the time I got down they
were gone. I couldn't understand how they had
disappeared so quick, but Captain Jim has enlightened
me. They flew away, of course."
Captain Jim laughed and went away, regretfully
declining an invitation to stay to supper and partake
of cherry pie.
"I'm on my way to see Leslie and ask her if she'll take
a boarder," Miss Cornelia resumed. "I'd a letter
yesterday from a Mrs. Daly in Toronto, who boarded a
spell with me two years ago. She wanted me to take a
friend of hers for the summer. His name is Owen Ford,
and he's a newspaper man, and it seems he's a grandson
of the schoolmaster who built this house. John
Selwyn's oldest daughter married an Ontario man named
Ford, and this is her son. He wants to see the old
place his grandparents lived in. He had a bad spell of
typhoid in the spring and hasn't got rightly over it,
so his doctor has ordered him to the sea. He doesn't
want to go to the hotel--he just wants a quiet home
place. I can't take him, for I have to be away in
August. I've been appointed a delegate to the W.F.M.S.
convention in Kingsport and I'm going. I don't know
whether Leslie'll want to be bothered with him, either,
but there's no one else. If she can't take him he'll
have to go over the harbor."
"When you've seen her come back and help us eat our
cherry pies," said Anne. "Bring Leslie and Dick, too,
if they can come. And so you're going to Kingsport?
What a nice time you will have. I must give you a
letter to a friend of mine there--Mrs. Jonas Blake."
"I've prevailed on Mrs. Thomas Holt to go with me,"
said Miss Cornelia complacently. "It's time she had a
little holiday, believe ME. She has just about worked
herself to death. Tom Holt can crochet beautifully,
but he can't make a living for his family. He never
seems to be able to get up early enough to do any work,
but I notice he can always get up early to go fishing.
Isn't that like a man?"
Anne smiled. She had learned to discount largely Miss
Cornelia's opinions of the Four Winds men. Otherwise
she must have believed them the most hopeless
assortment of reprobates and ne'er-do-wells in the
world, with veritable slaves and martyrs for wives.
This particular Tom Holt, for example, she knew to be a
kind husband, a much loved father, and an excellent
neighbor. If he were rather inclined to be lazy,
liking better the fishing he had been born for than the
farming he had not, and if he had a harmless
eccentricity for doing fancy work, nobody save Miss
Cornelia seemed to hold it against him. His wife was
a "hustler," who gloried in hustling; his family got a
comfortable living off the farm; and his strapping sons
and daughters, inheriting their mother's energy, were
all in a fair way to do well in the world. There was
not a happier household in Glen St. Mary than the
Holts'.
Miss Cornelia returned satisfied from the house up the
brook.
"Yes."
"Anne, I saw his little face as the wheel went over
him. He fell on his back. Anne--Anne--I can see it
now. I shall always see it. Anne, all I ask of heaven
is that that recollection shall be blotted out of my
memory. O my God!"
"Leslie, don't speak of it. I know the story--don't go
into details that only harrow your soul up
unavailingly. It WILL be blotted out."
After a moment's struggle, Leslie regained a measure of
self- control.
"Then father's health got worse and he grew
despondent--his mind became unbalanced--you've heard
all that, too?"
"Yes."
"After that I had just mother to live for. But I was
very ambitious. I meant to teach and earn my way
through college. I meant to climb to the very top--oh,
I won't talk of that either. It's no use. You know
what happened. I couldn't see my dear little
heart-broken mother, who had been such a slave all her
life, turned out of her home. Of course, I could have
earned enough for us to live on. But mother COULDN'T
leave her home. She had come there as a bride--and she
had loved father so--and all her memories were there.
Even yet, Anne, when I think that I made her last year
happy I'm not sorry for what I did. As for Dick--I
didn't hate him when I married him--I just felt for him
the indifferent, friendly feeling I had for most of my
schoolmates. I knew he drank some--but I had never
heard the story of the girl down at the fishing cove.
If I had, I COULDN'T have married him, even for
mother's sake. Afterwards--I DID hate him--but mother
never knew. She died--and then I was alone. I was
only seventeen and I was alone. Dick had gone off in
the Four Sisters. I hoped he wouldn't be home very
much more. The sea had always been in his blood. I
had no other hope. Well, Captain Jim brought him home,
as you know--and that's all there is to say. You know
me now, Anne--the worst of me--the barriers are all
down. And you still want to be my friend?"
Anne looked up through the birches, at the white
paper-lantern of a half moon drifting downwards to the
gulf of sunset. Her face was very sweet.
"I am your friend and you are mine, for always," she
said. "Such a friend as I never had before. I have
had many dear and beloved friends--but there is a
something in you, Leslie, that I never found in anyone
else. You have more to offer me in that rich nature of
yours, and I have more to give you than I had in my
careless girlhood. We are both women--and friends
forever."
They clasped hands and smiled at each other through the
tears that filled the gray eyes and the blue.
CHAPTER 22
MISS CORNELIA ARRANGES MATTERS
Gilbert insisted that Susan should be kept on at the
little house for the summer. Anne protested at first.
"Life here with just the two of us is so sweet,
Gilbert. It spoils it a little to have anyone else.
Susan is a dear soul, but she is an outsider. It won't
hurt me to do the work here."
"You must take your doctor's advice," said Gilbert.
"There's an old proverb to the effect that shoemakers'
wives go barefoot and doctors' wives die young. I
don't mean that it shall be true in my household. You
will keep Susan until the old spring comes back into
your step, and those little hollows on your cheeks fill
out."
"You just take it easy, Mrs. Doctor, dear," said
Susan, coming abruptly in. "Have a good time and do
not worry about the pantry. Susan is at the helm.
There is no use in keeping a dog and doing your own
barking. I am going to take your breakfast up to you
every morning."
"Indeed you are not," laughed Anne. "I agree with
Miss Cornelia that it's a scandal for a woman who isn't
sick to eat her breakfast in bed, and almost justifies
the men in any enormities."
"Oh, Cornelia!" said Susan, with ineffable contempt.
"I think you have better sense, Mrs. Doctor, dear, than
to heed what Cornelia Bryant says. I cannot see why
she must be always running down the men, even if she is
an old maid. _I_ am an old maid, but you never hear ME
abusing the men. I like 'em. I would have married one
if I could. Is it not funny nobody ever asked me to
marry him, Mrs. Doctor, dear? I am no beauty, but I am
as good-looking as most of the married women you see.
But I never had a beau. What do you suppose is the
reason?"
"It may be predestination," suggested Anne, with
unearthly solemnity.
Susan nodded.
"That is what I have often thought, Mrs. Doctor, dear,
and a great comfort it is. I do not mind nobody
wanting me if the Almighty decreed it so for His own
wise purposes. But sometimes doubt creeps in, Mrs.
Doctor, dear, and I wonder if maybe the Old Scratch has
not more to do with it than anyone else. I cannot feel
resigned THEN. But maybe," added Susan, brightening
up, "I will have a chance to get married yet. I often
and often think of the old verse my aunt used to
repeat:
There never was a goose so gray but sometime soon or
late Some honest gander came her way and took her for
his mate!
A woman cannot ever be sure of not being married till
she is buried, Mrs. Doctor, dear, and meanwhile I will
make a batch of cherry pies. I notice the doctor
favors 'em, and I DO like cooking for a man who
appreciates his victuals."
Miss Cornelia dropped in that afternoon, puffing a
little.
"I don't mind the world or the devil much, but the
flesh DOES rather bother me," she admitted. "You
always look as cool as a cucumber, Anne, dearie. Do I
smell cherry pie? If I do, ask me to stay to tea.
Haven't tasted a cherry pie this summer. My cherries
have all been stolen by those scamps of Gilman boys
from the Glen."
"Now, now, Cornelia," remonstrated Captain Jim, who
had been reading a sea novel in a corner of the living
room, "you shouldn't say that about those two poor,
motherless Gilman boys, unless you've got certain
proof. Jest because their father ain't none too honest
isn't any reason for calling them thieves. It's more
likely it's been the robins took your cherries.
They're turrible thick this year."
"Robins!" said Miss Cornelia disdainfully. "Humph!
Two- legged robins, believe ME!"
"Well, most of the Four Winds robins ARE constructed on
that principle," said Captain Jim gravely.
Miss Cornelia stared at him for a moment. Then she
leaned back in her rocker and laughed long and
ungrudgingly.
"Well, you HAVE got one on me at last, Jim Boyd, I'll
admit. Just look how pleased he is, Anne, dearie,
grinning like a Chessy-cat. As for the robins' legs if
robins have great, big, bare, sunburned legs, with
ragged trousershanging on 'em, such as I saw up in my
cherry tree one morning at sunrise last week, I'll beg
the Gilman boys' pardon. By the time I got down they
were gone. I couldn't understand how they had
disappeared so quick, but Captain Jim has enlightened
me. They flew away, of course."
Captain Jim laughed and went away, regretfully
declining an invitation to stay to supper and partake
of cherry pie.
"I'm on my way to see Leslie and ask her if she'll take
a boarder," Miss Cornelia resumed. "I'd a letter
yesterday from a Mrs. Daly in Toronto, who boarded a
spell with me two years ago. She wanted me to take a
friend of hers for the summer. His name is Owen Ford,
and he's a newspaper man, and it seems he's a grandson
of the schoolmaster who built this house. John
Selwyn's oldest daughter married an Ontario man named
Ford, and this is her son. He wants to see the old
place his grandparents lived in. He had a bad spell of
typhoid in the spring and hasn't got rightly over it,
so his doctor has ordered him to the sea. He doesn't
want to go to the hotel--he just wants a quiet home
place. I can't take him, for I have to be away in
August. I've been appointed a delegate to the W.F.M.S.
convention in Kingsport and I'm going. I don't know
whether Leslie'll want to be bothered with him, either,
but there's no one else. If she can't take him he'll
have to go over the harbor."
"When you've seen her come back and help us eat our
cherry pies," said Anne. "Bring Leslie and Dick, too,
if they can come. And so you're going to Kingsport?
What a nice time you will have. I must give you a
letter to a friend of mine there--Mrs. Jonas Blake."
"I've prevailed on Mrs. Thomas Holt to go with me,"
said Miss Cornelia complacently. "It's time she had a
little holiday, believe ME. She has just about worked
herself to death. Tom Holt can crochet beautifully,
but he can't make a living for his family. He never
seems to be able to get up early enough to do any work,
but I notice he can always get up early to go fishing.
Isn't that like a man?"
Anne smiled. She had learned to discount largely Miss
Cornelia's opinions of the Four Winds men. Otherwise
she must have believed them the most hopeless
assortment of reprobates and ne'er-do-wells in the
world, with veritable slaves and martyrs for wives.
This particular Tom Holt, for example, she knew to be a
kind husband, a much loved father, and an excellent
neighbor. If he were rather inclined to be lazy,
liking better the fishing he had been born for than the
farming he had not, and if he had a harmless
eccentricity for doing fancy work, nobody save Miss
Cornelia seemed to hold it against him. His wife was
a "hustler," who gloried in hustling; his family got a
comfortable living off the farm; and his strapping sons
and daughters, inheriting their mother's energy, were
all in a fair way to do well in the world. There was
not a happier household in Glen St. Mary than the
Holts'.
Miss Cornelia returned satisfied from the house up the
brook.
- measure [´meʒə]
n.量度；范围 vt.测量 (初中英语单词) - ambitious [æm´biʃəs] a.有雄心的；热望的 (初中英语单词)
- sunset [´sʌnset] n.日落；晚霞 (初中英语单词)
- beloved [bi´lʌvd] a.为....所爱的 n.爱人 (初中英语单词)
- abruptly [ə´brʌptli] ad.突然地；粗鲁地 (初中英语单词)
- running [´rʌniŋ] a.奔跑的；流动的 (初中英语单词)
- scratch [skrætʃ] v.&n.抓，搔；抓伤 (初中英语单词)
- sometime [´sʌmtaim] ad.曾经 a.从前的 (初中英语单词)
- meanwhile [´mi:n´wail] n.&ad.其间；同时 (初中英语单词)
- bother [´bɔðə] v.打扰 n.麻烦(事) (初中英语单词)
- stolen [´stəulən] steal 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- reading [´ri:diŋ] n.(阅)读；朗读；读物 (初中英语单词)
- trousers [´trauzəz] n.裤子，长裤 (初中英语单词)
- pardon [´pɑ:dən] n.&vt.原谅；饶恕；赦免 (初中英语单词)
- invitation [,invi´teiʃən] n.邀请；请帖；吸引 (初中英语单词)
- delegate [´deligət] vt.派...为代表 n.代表 (初中英语单词)
- holiday [´hɔlidi] n.假日，假期，节日 (初中英语单词)
- energy [´enədʒi] n.活力，精力；能力 (初中英语单词)
- recollection [,rekə´lekʃən] n.回忆；追想；记忆力 (高中英语单词)
- indifferent [in´difrənt] a.不关心的；中立的 (高中英语单词)
- pantry [´pæntri] n.食品室；餐具室 (高中英语单词)
- scandal [´skændl] n.丑闻；耻辱；流言蜚语 (高中英语单词)
- cherry [´tʃeri] n.樱桃(树) (高中英语单词)
- hanging [´hæŋiŋ] n.绞刑 a.悬挂着的 (高中英语单词)
- sunrise [´sʌnraiz] n.日出，黎明 (高中英语单词)
- learned [´lə:nid] a.有学问的，博学的 (高中英语单词)
- fishing [´fiʃiŋ] n.钓鱼；捕鱼；渔业 (英语四级单词)
- downwards [´daunwədz] ad.向下，以下 (英语四级单词)
- proverb [´prɔvə:b] n.谚语；格言 (英语四级单词)
- almighty [ɔ:l´maiti] a.万能的；全能的 (英语四级单词)
- cucumber [´kju:kʌmbə] n.黄瓜 (英语四级单词)
- thieves [θi:vz] thief的复数 (英语四级单词)
- schoolmaster [´sku:l,mɑ:stə] n.教练；(男)教师 (英语四级单词)
- rightly [´raitli] ad.正义地；正确地 (英语四级单词)
- discount [´diskaunt] n.&vt.(打)折扣 (英语四级单词)
- harrow [´hærəu] n.&v.耙(地) (英语六级单词)
- barefoot [´beəfut] ad.&a.=barefooted (英语六级单词)
- good-looking [] a.漂亮的，美貌的 (英语六级单词)
- calling [´kɔ:liŋ] n.点名；职业；欲望 (英语六级单词)
- ontario [ɔn´tɛəriəu] n.安大略湖 (英语六级单词)
- crochet [´krəuʃei] n.&v.(用)钩针编织 (英语六级单词)
- veritable [´veritəbəl] a.真正的；确实的 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
章节正文
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