Death Not Divided. I read it to Marilla and she said it was stuff and
nonsense. Then I read it to Matthew and he said it was fine. That is
the kind of critic I like. It s a sad, sweet story. I just cried like
a child while I was writing it. It s about two beautiful maidens called
Cordelia Montmorency and Geraldine Seymour who lived in the same village
and were devotedly attached to each other. Cordelia was a regal brunette
with a coronet of midnight hair and duskly flashing eyes. Geraldine was
a queenly blonde with hair like spun gold and velvety purple eyes.
I never saw anybody with purple eyes, said Diana dubiously.
Neither did I. I just imagined them. I wanted something out of the
common. Geraldine had an alabaster brow too. I ve found out what an
alabaster brow is. That is one of the advantages of being thirteen. You
know so much more than you did when you were only twelve.
Well, what became of Cordelia and Geraldine? asked Diana, who was
beginning to feel rather interested in their fate.
They grew in beauty side by side until they were sixteen. Then Bertram
DeVere came to their native village and fell in love with the fair
Geraldine. He saved her life when her horse ran away with her in a
carriage, and she fainted in his arms and he carried her home three
miles; because, you understand, the carriage was all smashed up. I found
it rather hard to imagine the proposal because I had no experience to
go by. I asked Ruby Gillis if she knew anything about how men proposed
because I thought she d likely be an authority on the subject, having so
many sisters married. Ruby told me she was hid in the hall pantry when
Malcolm Andres proposed to her sister Susan. She said Malcolm told Susan
that his dad had given him the farm in his own name and then said, What
do you say, darling pet, if we get hitched this fall? And Susan said,
Yes--no--I don t know--let me see --and there they were, engaged as
quick as that. But I didn t think that sort of a proposal was a very
romantic one, so in the end I had to imagine it out as well as I could.
I made it very flowery and poetical and Bertram went on his knees,
although Ruby Gillis says it isn t done nowadays. Geraldine accepted
him in a speech a page long. I can tell you I took a lot of trouble
with that speech. I rewrote it five times and I look upon it as my
masterpiece. Bertram gave her a diamond ring and a ruby necklace
and told her they would go to Europe for a wedding tour, for he was
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