"Montgomery, Lucy Maud - Anne Of Green Gables" - читать интересную книгу автора (Montgomery Lucy Maud)

it something of the appearance of an unused parlor. Its windows looked
east and west; through the west one, looking out on the back yard, came a
flood of mellow June sunlight; but the east one, whence you got a glimpse
of the bloom white cherry-trees in the left orchard and nodding, slender
birches down in the hollow by the brook, was greened over by a tangle of
vines. Here sat Marilla Cuthbert, when she sat at all, always slightly
distrustful of sunshine, which seemed to her too dancing and irresponsible
a thing for a world which was meant to be taken seriously; and here she
sat now, knitting, and the table behind her was laid for supper.
Mrs. Rachel, before she had fairly closed the door, had taken a
mental note of everything that was on that table. There were three plates
laid, so that Marilla must be expecting some one home with Matthew to tea;
but the dishes were everyday dishes and there was only crab-apple
preserves and one kind of cake, so that the expected company could not be
any particular company. Yet what of Matthew's white collar and the sorrel
mare? Mrs. Rachel was getting fairly dizzy with this unusual mystery about
quiet, unmysterious Green Gables.
"Good evening, Rachel," Marilla said briskly. "This is a real fine
evening, isn't it" Won't you sit down? How are all your folks?"
Something that for lack of any other name might be called friendship
existed and always had existed between Marilla Cuthbert and Mrs. Rachel,
in spite of-or perhaps because of-their dissimilarity.
Marilla was a tall, thin woman, with angles and without curves; her
dark hair showed some gray streaks and was always twisted up in a hard
little knot behind with two wire hairpins stuck aggressively through it.
She looked like a woman of narrow experience and rigid conscience, which
she was; but there was a saving something about her mouth which, if it had
been ever so slightly developed, might have been considered indicative of
a sense of humor.
"We're all pretty well," said Mrs. Rachel. "I was kind of afraid YOU
weren't, though, when I saw Matthew starting off today. I thought maybe he
was going to the doctor's."
Marilla's lips twitched understandingly. She had expected Mrs. Rachel
up; she had known that the sight of Matthew jaunting off so unaccountably
would be too much for her neighbor's curiosity.
"Oh, no, I'm quite well although I had a bad headache yesterday," she
said. "Matthew went to Bright River. We're getting a little boy from an
orphan asylum in Nova Scotia and he's coming on the train tonight."
If Marilla had said that Matthew had gone to Bright River to meet a
kangaroo from Australia Mrs. Rachel could not have been more astonished.
She was actually stricken dumb for five seconds. It was unsupposable that
Marilla was making fun of her, but Mrs. Rachel was almost forced to
suppose it.
"Are you in earnest, Marilla?" she demanded when voice returned to
her.
"Yes, of course," said Marilla, as if getting boys from orphan
asylums in Nova Scotia were part of the usual spring work on any
well-regulated Avonlea farm instead of being an unheard of innovation.
Mrs. Rachel felt that she had received a severe mental jolt. She
thought in exclamation points. A boy! Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert of all