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Anne of Green Gables

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Title: Anne of Green Gables

Author: L. M. Montgomery

 
Release date: June 27, 2008 [eBook #45]
 Most recently updated: April 29, 2025

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45

Credits: David Widger and Charles Keller

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANNE OF GREEN GABLES ***

ANNE OF GREEN GABLES

By Lucy Maud Montgomery

Table of Contents

 CHAPTER I Mrs. Rachel Lynde Is Surprised
 CHAPTER II Matthew Cuthbert Is Surprised
 CHAPTER III Marilla Cuthbert Is Surprised
 CHAPTER IV Morning at Green Gables
 CHAPTER V Anne's History
 CHAPTER VI Marilla Makes Up Her Mind
 CHAPTER VII Anne Says Her Prayers
 CHAPTER VIII Anne's Bringing-up Is Begun
 CHAPTER IX Mrs. Rachel Lynde Is Properly Horrified
 CHAPTER X Anne's Apology
 CHAPTER XI Anne's Impressions of Sunday-school
 CHAPTER XII A Solemn Vow and Promise
 CHAPTER XIII The Delights of Anticipation
 CHAPTER XIV Anne's Confession
 CHAPTER XV A Tempest in the School Teapot
 CHAPTER XVI Diana Is Invited to Tea with Tragic Results
 CHAPTER XVII A New Interest in Life
 CHAPTER XVIII Anne to the Rescue
 CHAPTER XIX A Concert, a Catastrophe, and a Confession
 CHAPTER XX A Good Imagination Gone Wrong
 CHAPTER XXI A New Departure in Flavorings
 CHAPTER XXII Anne Is Invited Out to Tea
 CHAPTER XXIII Anne Comes to Grief in an Affair of Honor
 CHAPTER XXIV Miss Stacy and Her Pupils Get Up a Concert
 CHAPTER XXV Matthew Insists on Puffed Sleeves
 CHAPTER XXVI The Story Club Is Formed
 CHAPTER XXVII Vanity and Vexation of Spirit
 CHAPTER XXVIII An Unfortunate Lily Maid
 CHAPTER XXIX An Epoch in Anne's Life
 CHAPTER XXX The Queen's Class Is Organized
 CHAPTER XXXI Where the Brook and River Meet
 CHAPTER XXXII The Pass List Is Out
 CHAPTER XXXIII The Hotel Concert
 CHAPTER XXXIV A Queen's Girl
 CHAPTER XXXV The Winter at Queen's
 CHAPTER XXXVI The Glory and the Dream
 CHAPTER XXXVII The Reaper Whose Name Is Death
 CHAPTER XXXVIII The Bend in the Road

ANNE OF GREEN GABLES

CHAPTER I. Mrs. Rachel Lynde Is Surprised

MRS. Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main road dipped down
into a little hollow, fringed with alders and ladies' eardrops and
traversed by a brook that had its source away back in the woods of the
old Cuthbert place; it was reputed to be an intricate, headlong brook
in its earlier course through those woods, with dark secrets of pool
and cascade; but by the time it reached Lynde's Hollow it was a quiet,
well-conducted little stream, for not even a brook could run past Mrs.
Rachel Lynde's door without due regard for decency and decorum; it
probably was conscious that Mrs. Rachel was sitting at her window,
keeping a sharp eye on everything that passed, from brooks and children
up, and that if she noticed anything odd or out of place she would never
rest until she had ferreted out the whys and wherefores thereof.

There are plenty of people, in Avonlea and out of it, who can attend
closely to their neighbors' business by dint of neglecting their own;
but Mrs. Rachel Lynde was one of those capable creatures who can manage
their own concerns and those of other folks into the bargain. She was a
notable housewife; her work was always done and well done; she "ran" the
Sewing Circle, helped run the Sunday-school, and was the strongest prop
of the Church Aid Society and Foreign Missions Auxiliary. Yet with all
this Mrs. Rachel found abundant time to sit for hours at her kitchen
window, knitting "cotton warp" quilts--she had knitted sixteen of them,
as Avonlea housekeepers were wont to tell in awed voices--and keeping
a sharp eye on the main road that crossed the hollow and wound up
the steep red hill beyond. Since Avonlea occupied a little triangular
peninsula jutting out into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, with water on two
sides of it, anybody who went out of it or into it had to pass over that
hill road and so run the unseen gauntlet of Mrs. Rachel's all-seeing
eye.

She was sitting there one afternoon in early June. The sun was coming in
at the window warm and bright; the orchard on the slope below the house
was in a bridal flush of pinky-white bloom, hummed over by a myriad of
bees. Thomas Lynde--a meek little man whom Avonlea people called "Rachel
Lynde's husband"--was sowing his late turnip seed on the hill field
beyond the barn; and Matthew Cuthbert ought to have been sowing his on
the big red brook field away over by Green Gables. Mrs. Rachel knew
that he ought because she had heard him tell Peter Morrison the evening
before in William J. Blair's store over at Carmody that he meant to sow
his turnip seed the next afternoon. Peter had asked him, of course, for
Matthew Cuthbert had never been known to volunteer information about
anything in his whole life.

And yet here was Matthew Cuthbert, at half-past three on the afternoon
of a busy day, placidly driving over the hollow and up the hill;
moreover, he wore a white collar and his best suit of clothes, which was
plain proof that he was going out of Avonlea; and he had the buggy
and the sorrel mare, which betokened that he was going a considerable
distance. Now, where was Matthew Cuthbert going and why was he going
there?

Had it been any other man in Avonlea, Mrs. Rachel, deftly putting this
and that together, might have given a pretty good guess as to both
questions. But Matthew so rarely went from home that it must be
something pressing and unusual which was taking him; he was the shyest
man alive and hated to have to go among strangers or to any place where
he might have to talk. Matthew, dressed up with a white collar and
driving in a buggy, was something that didn't happen often. Mrs. Rachel,
ponder as she might, could make nothing of it and her afternoon's
enjoyment was spoiled.

"I'll just step over to Green Gables after tea and find out from Marilla
where he's gone and why," the worthy woman finally concluded. "He
doesn't generally go to town this time of year and he _never_ visits; if
he'd run out of turnip seed he wouldn't dress up and take the buggy to
go for more; he wasn't driving fast enough to be going for a doctor.
Yet something must have happened since last night to start him off. I'm
clean puzzled, that's what, and I won't know a minute's peace of mind or
conscience until I know what has taken Matthew Cuthbert out of Avonlea
today."

Accordingly after tea Mrs. Rachel set out; she had not far to go; the
big, rambling, orchard-embowered house where the Cuthberts lived was a
scant quarter of a mile up the road from Lynde's Holl

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