Anne, new to grief, thought it almost sad that it could be so--that
they _could_ go on in the old way without Matthew. She felt something like
shame and remorse when she discovered that the sunrises behind the firs
and the pale pink buds opening in the garden gave her the old inrush of
gladness when she saw them--that Diana s visits were pleasant to her
and that Diana s merry words and ways moved her to laughter and
smiles--that, in brief, the beautiful world of blossom and love and
friendship had lost none of its power to please her fancy and thrill her
heart, that life still called to her with many insistent voices.
It seems like disloyalty to Matthew, somehow, to find pleasure in
these things now that he has gone, she said wistfully to Mrs. Allan
one evening when they were together in the manse garden. I miss him so
much--all the time--and yet, Mrs. Allan, the world and life seem very
beautiful and interesting to me for all. Today Diana said something
funny and I found myself laughing. I thought when it happened I could
never laugh again. And it somehow seems as if I oughtn t to.
When Matthew was here he liked to hear you laugh and he liked to know
that you found pleasure in the pleasant things around you, said Mrs.
Allan gently. He is just away now; and he likes to know it just the
same. I am sure we should not shut our hearts against the healing
influences that nature offers us. But I can understand your feeling.
I think we all experience the same thing. We resent the thought that
anything can please us when someone we love is no longer here to share
the pleasure with us, and we almost feel as if we were unfaithful to our
sorrow when we find our interest in life returning to us.
I was down to the graveyard to plant a rosebush on Matthew s grave
this afternoon, said Anne dreamily. I took a slip of the little white
Scotch rosebush his mother brought out from Scotland long ago; Matthew
always liked those roses the best--they were so small and sweet on
their thorny stems. It made me feel glad that I could plant it by his
grave--as if I were doing something that must please him in taking it
there to be near him. I hope he has roses like them in heaven. Perhaps
the souls of all those little white roses that he has loved so many
summers were all there to meet him. I must go home now. Marilla is all
alone and she gets lonely at twilight.
She will be lonelier still, I fear, when you go away again to college,
260