night. I wouldn t be a bit afraid, and it would be lovely to sleep in a
wild cherry-tree all white with bloom in the moonshine, don t you think?
You could imagine you were dwelling in marble halls, couldn t you? And
I was quite sure you would come for me in the morning, if you didn t
tonight.
Matthew had taken the scrawny little hand awkwardly in his; then and
there he decided what to do. He could not tell this child with the
glowing eyes that there had been a mistake; he would take her home and
let Marilla do that. She couldn t be left at Bright River anyhow, no
matter what mistake had been made, so all questions and explanations
might as well be deferred until he was safely back at Green Gables.
I m sorry I was late, he said shyly. Come along. The horse is over in
the yard. Give me your bag.
Oh, I can carry it, the child responded cheerfully. It isn t heavy.
I ve got all my worldly goods in it, but it isn t heavy. And if it isn t
carried in just a certain way the handle pulls out--so I d better
keep it because I know the exact knack of it. It s an extremely old
carpet-bag. Oh, I m very glad you ve come, even if it would have been
nice to sleep in a wild cherry-tree. We ve got to drive a long piece,
haven t we? Mrs. Spencer said it was eight miles. I m glad because I
love driving. Oh, it seems so wonderful that I m going to live with you
and belong to you. I ve never belonged to anybody--not really. But the
asylum was the worst. I ve only been in it four months, but that was
enough. I don t suppose you ever were an orphan in an asylum, so you
can t possibly understand what it is like. It s worse than anything you
could imagine. Mrs. Spencer said it was wicked of me to talk like
that, but I didn t mean to be wicked. It s so easy to be wicked without
knowing it, isn t it? They were good, you know--the asylum people. But
there is so little scope for the imagination in an asylum--only just
in the other orphans. It was pretty interesting to imagine things about
them--to imagine that perhaps the girl who sat next to you was really
the daughter of a belted earl, who had been stolen away from her parents
in her infancy by a cruel nurse who died before she could confess. I
used to lie awake at nights and imagine things like that, because
I didn t have time in the day. I guess that s why I m so thin--I _am_
dreadful thin, ain t I? There isn t a pick on my bones. I do love to
imagine I m nice and plump, with dimples in my elbows.
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