to see where
it is. We send word, Matthew and I, for you to bring us a boy from the
asylum. We told your brother Robert to tell you we wanted a boy ten or
eleven years old."

"Marilla Cuthbert, you don't say so!" said Mrs. Spencer in distress.
"Why, Robert sent word down by his daughter Nancy and she said you
wanted a girl--didn't she Flora Jane?" appealing to her daughter who had
come out to the steps.

"She certainly did, Miss Cuthbert," corroborated Flora Jane earnestly.

"I'm dreadful sorry," said Mrs. Spencer. "It's too bad; but it certainly
wasn't my fault, you see, Miss Cuthbert. I did the best I could and I
thought I was following your instructions. Nancy is a terrible flighty
thing. I've often had to scold her well for her heedlessness."

"It was our own fault," said Marilla resignedly. "We should have come
to you ourselves and not left an important message to be passed along by
word of mouth in that fashion. Anyhow, the mistake has been made and the
only thing to do is to set it right. Can we send the child back to the
asylum? I suppose they'll take her back, won't they?"

"I suppose so," said Mrs. Spencer thoughtfully, "but I don't think
it will be necessary to send her back. Mrs. Peter Blewett was up here
yesterday, and she was saying to me how much she wished she'd sent by me
for a little girl to help her. Mrs. Peter has a large family, you know,
and she finds it hard to get help. Anne will be the very girl for you. I
call it positively providential."

Marilla did not look as if she thought Providence had much to do with
the matter. Here was an unexpectedly good chance to get this unwelcome
orphan off her hands, and she did not even feel grateful for it.

She knew Mrs. Peter Blewett only by sight as a small, shrewish-faced
woman without an ounce of superfluous flesh on her bones. But she had
heard of her. "A terrible worker and driver," Mrs. Peter was said to
be; and discharged servant girls told fearsome tales of her temper and
stinginess, and her family of pert, quarrelsome children. Marilla felt
a qualm of conscience at the thought of handing Anne over to her tender
mercies.

"Well, I'll go in and we'll talk the matter over," she said.

"And if there isn't Mrs. Peter coming up the lane this blessed minute!"
exclaimed Mrs. Spencer, bustling her guests through the hall into the
parlor, where a deadly chill struck on them as if the air had been
strained so long through dark green, closely drawn bl