."

"Well now, it's just as you say, of course, Marilla," said Matthew
rising and putting his pipe away. "I'm going to bed."

To bed went Matthew. And to bed, when she had put her dishes away, went
Marilla, frowning most resolutely. And up-stairs, in the east gable, a
lonely, heart-hungry, friendless child cried herself to sleep.

CHAPTER IV. Morning at Green Gables

It was broad daylight when Anne awoke and sat up in bed, staring
confusedly at the window through which a flood of cheery sunshine was
pouring and outside of which something white and feathery waved across
glimpses of blue sky.

For a moment she could not remember where she was. First came a
delightful thrill, as something very pleasant; then a horrible
remembrance. This was Green Gables and they didn't want her because she
wasn't a boy!

But it was morning and, yes, it was a cherry-tree in full bloom outside
of her window. With a bound she was out of bed and across the floor.
She pushed up the sash--it went up stiffly and creakily, as if it hadn't
been opened for a long time, which was the case; and it stuck so tight
that nothing was needed to hold it up.

Anne dropped on her knees and gazed out into the June morning, her eyes
glistening with delight. Oh, wasn't it beautiful? Wasn't it a lovely
place? Suppose she wasn't really going to stay here! She would imagine
she was. There was scope for imagination here.

A huge cherry-tree grew outside, so close that its boughs tapped against
the house, and it was so thick-set with blossoms that hardly a leaf
was to be seen. On both sides of the house was a big orchard, one of
apple-trees and one of cherry-trees, also showered over with blossoms;
and their grass was all sprinkled with dandelions. In the garden below
were lilac-trees purple with flowers, and their dizzily sweet fragrance
drifted up to the window on the morning wind.

Below the garden a green field lush with clover sloped down to the
hollow where the brook ran and where scores of white birches grew,
upspringing airily out of an undergrowth suggestive of delightful
possibilities in ferns and mosses and woodsy things generally. Beyond it
was a hill, green and feathery with spruce and fir; there was a gap in
it where the gray gable end of the little house she had seen from the
other side of the Lake of Shining Waters was visible.

Off to the left were the big barns and beyond them, away down over
green, low-sloping fields, was a spark