to feel encouraged when I hear that other people have been bad and
mischievous? Mrs. Lynde says it is. Mrs. Lynde says she always feels
shocked when she hears of anyone ever having been naughty, no matter how
small they were. Mrs. Lynde says she once heard a minister confess that
when he was a boy he stole a strawberry tart out of his aunt s pantry
and she never had any respect for that minister again. Now, I wouldn t
have felt that way. I d have thought that it was real noble of him to
confess it, and I d have thought what an encouraging thing it would be
for small boys nowadays who do naughty things and are sorry for them
to know that perhaps they may grow up to be ministers in spite of it.
That s how I d feel, Marilla.
The way I feel at present, Anne, said Marilla, is that it s high time
you had those dishes washed. You ve taken half an hour longer than
you should with all your chattering. Learn to work first and talk
afterwards.
CHAPTER XXVII. Vanity and Vexation of Spirit
MARILLA, walking home one late April evening from an Aid meeting,
realized that the winter was over and gone with the thrill of delight
that spring never fails to bring to the oldest and saddest as well as to
the youngest and merriest. Marilla was not given to subjective analysis
of her thoughts and feelings. She probably imagined that she was
thinking about the Aids and their missionary box and the new carpet
for the vestry room, but under these reflections was a harmonious
consciousness of red fields smoking into pale-purply mists in the
declining sun, of long, sharp-pointed fir shadows falling over the
meadow beyond the brook, of still, crimson-budded maples around a
mirrorlike wood pool, of a wakening in the world and a stir of hidden
pulses under the gray sod. The spring was abroad in the land and
Marilla s sober, middle-aged step was lighter and swifter because of its
deep, primal gladness.
Her eyes dwelt affectionately on Green Gables, peering through its
network of trees and reflecting the sunlight back from its windows in
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