“Well, I won’t,” said Davy, brightening up. “If you help me with the sums I’ll
have ‘em done in time to go fishing with Milty. I wish old Aunt Atossa’s funeral
was tomorrow instead of today. I wanted to go to it ‘cause Milty said his mother
said Aunt Atossa would be sure to rise up in her coffin and say sarcastic things
to the folks that come to see her buried. But Marilla said she didn’t.”
“Poor Atossa laid in her coffin peaceful enough,” said Mrs. Lynde solemnly.
“I never saw her look so pleasant before, that’s what. Well, there weren’t many
tears shed over her, poor old soul. The Elisha Wrights are thankful to be rid of
her, and I can’t say I blame them a mite.”
“It seems to me a most dreadful thing to go out of the world and not leave one
person behind you who is sorry you are gone,” said Anne, shuddering.
“Nobody except her parents ever loved poor Atossa, that’s certain, not even
her husband,” averred Mrs. Lynde. “She was his fourth wife. He’d sort of got
into the habit of marrying. He only lived a few years after he married her. The
doctor said he died of dyspepsia, but I shall always maintain that he died of
Atossa’s tongue, that’s what. Poor soul, she always knew everything about her
neighbors, but she never was very well acquainted with herself. Well, she’s gone
anyhow; and I suppose the next excitement will be Diana’s wedding.”
“It seems funny and horrible to think of Diana’s being married,” sighed Anne,
hugging her knees and looking through the gap in the Haunted Wood to the light
that was shining in Diana’s room.
“I don’t see what’s horrible about it, when she’s doing so well,” said Mrs.
Lynde emphatically. “Fred Wright has a fine farm and he is a model young
man.”
“He certainly isn’t the wild, dashing, wicked, young man Diana once wanted
to marry,” smiled Anne. “Fred is extremely good.”
“That’s just what he ought to be. Would you want Diana to marry a wicked
man? Or marry one yourself?”
“Oh, no. I wouldn’t want to marry anybody who was wicked, but I think I’d
like it if he COULD be wicked and WOULDN’T. Now, Fred is HOPELESSLY
good.”
“You’ll have more sense some day, I hope,” said Marilla.
Marilla spoke rather bitterly. She was grievously disappointed. She knew
Anne had refused Gilbert Blythe. Avonlea gossip buzzed over the fact, which
had leaked out, nobody knew how. Perhaps Charlie Sloane had guessed and told
his guesses for truth. Perhaps Diana had betrayed it to Fred and Fred had been