"Pretty as she is, she is no spring chicken now," said Susan firmly, "and it would be far better for her to make a choice and settle down. Look at her Aunt Eudora ... SHE said she didn't intend to marry till she got through flirting, and behold the result. Even yet she tries to flirt with every man in sight though she is forty-five if she is a day. That is what comes of forming a habit. Did you every hear, Mrs. Dr. dear, what she said to her cousin Fanny when SHE got married? 'You're taking my leavings,' she said. I am informed there was a shower of sparks and they have never spoken since.”
"Life and death are in the power of the tongue," murmured Anne absently.
"A true word, dear. Speaking of that, I wish Mr. Stanley would be a little more judicious in his sermons. He has offended Wallace Young and Wallace is going to leave the church. Everyone says the sermon last Sunday was preached at him.”
"If a minister preaches a sermon that hits home to some particular individual people always suppose he meant it for that very person,” said Anne. "A hand-me-down cap is bound to fit somebody's head but it doesn't follow that it was made for him.”
"Sound sense," approved Susan. "And I have no use for Wallace Young. He let a firm paint ads on his cows three years ago. That is TOO economical, in my opinion.”
"His brother David is going to be married at last," said Miss Cornelia. "He's been a long time making up his mind which was cheaper--marrying or hiring. 'Ye CAN keep a house without a woman but it's hard sledding, Cornelia,' he said to me once after his mother died. I had an idea that he was feeling his way but he got no encouragement from ME. And at last he's going to marry Jessie King.”
"Jessie King! But I thought he was supposed to be courting Mary North.”
"HE says he wasn't going to marry any woman who eats cabbage. But there's a story going around that he proposed to her and she boxed his ears. And Jessie King is reported to have said that she would have liked a better looking man but that he'd have to do. Well, of course it is any port in a storm for some folks.”
"I do not think, Mrs. Marshall Elliott, that people in these parts say half the things they are reported to have said," rebuked Susan.
"It is my opinion that Jessie King will make David Young a far better wife than he deserves ... though as far as outward seeming goes I will admit he looks like something that washed in with the tide.”
"Do you know that Alden and Stella have a little daughter?" asked Anne.
"So I understand. I hope Stella will be a little more sensible over it than Lisette was over HER. Would you believe it, Anne dear, Lisette positively cried because her cousin Dora's baby walked before Stella did?”
"We mothers are a foolish race," smiled Anne. "I remember that I felt perfectly murderous when little Bob Taylor, who was the same age as Jem to a day, cut three teeth before Jem cut one.”
"Bob Taylor's got to have an operation on his tonsils," said Miss Cornelia.
"Why don't WE ever have operations, Mother?" demanded Walter and Di together in injured tones. They so often said the same thing together. Then they linked their fingers and made a wish. "We think and feel the same about EVERYTHING," Di was wont to explain earnestly.
"Shall I ever forget Elsie Taylor's marriage?" said Miss Cornelia reminiscently. "Her best friend, Maisie Millison, was to play the wedding march. She played the Dead March in Saul in place of it.
Of course she always said she made a mistake because she was so flustered but people had their own opinion. SHE wanted Mac Moorside for herself. A good-looking rogue with a silver tongue ... always saying to women just what he thought they'd like to hear. He made Elsie's life miserable. Ah well, Anne dearie, they've both passed long since into the Silent Land and Maisie's been married to Harley Russell for years and everybody has forgotten that he proposed to her expecting her to say 'No' and she said 'Yes' instead. Harley has forgotten it himself ... just like a man. He thinks he has got the best wife in the world and congratulates himself on being clever enough to get her.”
"Why did he propose to her if he wanted her to say no? It seems to me a very strange proceeding," said Susan ... immediately adding with crushing humility, "But of course I would not be expected to know anything about THAT.”
"His father ordered him to. He didn't want to, but he thought it was quite safe... There's the doctor now.”
As Gilbert came in, a little flurry of snow blew in with him. He threw off his coat and sat gladly down to his own fireside.
"I'm later than I expected to be ...”
"No doubt the new lace nightgown was very attractive," said Anne, with an impish grin at Miss Cornelia.
"What are you talking about? Some feminine joke beyond my coarse masculine perception, I suppose. I went on to the Upper Glen to see Walter Cooper.”
"It's a mystery how that man does hang on," said Miss Cornelia.
"I've no patience with him," smiled Gilbert. "He ought to have been dead long ago. A year ago I gave him two months and here he is ruining my reputation by keeping on living.”
"If you knew the Coopers as well as I do you wouldn't risk predictions on them. Don't you know his grandfather came back to life after they'd dug the grave and got the coffin? The undertaker wouldn't take it back either. However, I understand Walter Cooper is having lots of fun rehearsing his own funeral ... just like a man. Well, there's Marshall's bells ... and this jar of pickled pears is for you, Anne dearie.”
They all went to the door to see Miss Cornelia off. Walter's dark grey eyes peered out into the stormy night.
"I wonder where Cock Robin is tonight and if he misses us," he said wistfully. Perhaps Cock Robin had gone to that mysterious place Mrs. Elliott was always referring to as the Silent Land.
"Cock Robin is in a southern land of sunshine," said Anne. "He'll be back in the spring, I feel quite sure, and that's only five months away. Chickabids, you should all have been in bed along ago.”
"Susan," Di was saying in the pantry, "would you like to have a baby? I know where you could get one ... brand-new.”
"Ah now, where?”
"They have a new one at Amy's. Amy says the angels brought it and she thinks they might have had more sense. They've eight children now, not counting it. I heard you say yesterday that it made you lonesome to see Rilla getting so big ... you'd no baby now. I'm sure Mrs. Taylor would give you hers.”
"The things children think of! It runs in the Taylors to have big families. Andrew Taylor's father never could tell offhand how many children he had ... always had to stop and reckon them up. But I do not think I will take any outside babies on just yet.”
"Susan, Amy Taylor says you are an old maid. Are you, Susan?”
"Such has been the lot an all-wise Providence has ordained for me,” said Susan unflinchingly.
"Do you LIKE being an old maid, Susan?”
"I cannot truthfully say I do, my pet. But," added Susan, remembering the lot of some wives she knew, "I have learned that there are compensations. Now take your father's apple pie to him and I'll bring his tea. The poor man must be faint from hunger.”
"Mother, we've got the loveliest home in the world, haven't we?” said Walter as he went sleepily upstairs. "Only ... don't you think it would improve it if we had a few ghosts?”
"Ghosts?”
"Yes. Jerry Palmer's house is full of ghosts. He saw one ... a tall lady in white with a skeleton hand. I told Susan about it and she said he was either fibbing or there was something the matter with his stomach.”
"Susan was right. As for Ingleside, nobody but happy people have ever lived here ... so you see we're not ghostable. Now say your prayers and go to sleep.”