One mild October evening, Anne leaned back in her chair and sighed.
She was sitting at a table covered with textbooks and exercises.
"What is the matter?" asked Gilbert, who had just arrived.
"How's school going? I heard you are doing a splendid job and all the children like you."
"Actually, no, not all," said Anne. "Anthony Pye doesn't and won't like me.
And what's worse is he doesn't respect me.
I don't mind confessing to you that it worries me miserably.
I've tried every way to win him over, and I'm beginning to fear I never shall.
But we'll see what patience and kindness can do."
"Do you at least like teaching?" asked Gilbert. "I do.
Why, I've learned more in the past few weeks of teaching than in all the years I went to school myself!"
Anne and Gilbert talked for a while about their plans, and Gilbert announced that he wanted to study to be a doctor.
"I want to do my share of honest, real work in the world, Anne."
"I'd like to add some beauty to life," said Anne dreamily.
"I don't exactly want to make people know more—though I know that teaching is the noblest ambition—
but I'd love for people to have some little joy or happy thought because of me."
"I think you're fulfilling that ambition every day," said Gilbert admiringly.
Gilbert left, and when Marilla returned home, the fire was crackling and Anne had dinner ready.
But Marilla sank wearily into her chair.
"Are your eyes troubling you? Does your head ache?" queried Anne anxiously.
"No," said Marilla. "I'm just tired . . . and worried about my cousin Mary and her children.
Mary is very ill and may die soon."
"What are the children like? How old are they?" Anne asked.
"They're twins—six years old," replied Marilla.
"Oh, I've always been especially interested in twins since Mrs. Hammond had so many," said Anne eagerly. "Are they pretty?"
"Goodness, I couldn't tell," said Marilla. "They were too dirty.
Davy was making mud pies outside, and he pushed Dora into the mud.
Mary said Dora was really a very good child but that Davy was full of mischief." Marilla paused for a moment.
"Anne, I'm sure Mary wants me to take those children.
She didn't say so, but I'm sure she thinks it."
"Oh!" Anne clasped her hands with excitement.
"And of course you will, Marilla, won't you?"
"I haven't made up my mind," said Marilla.
Marilla thought there was only one thing you could say about twins: they were twice as bad as a single child.
"I think twins are very interesting," repeated Anne. "At least one pair of them."
Marilla frowned and said, "Dora seems good and quiet, but that Davy . . ."
Anne was fond of children, and the memory of her own lonely childhood before she came to Green Gables was still very vivid.
"It's our duty to look after them, Marilla," Anne insisted.
"I suppose it is," Marilla agreed with some reluctance.
"Don't look so happy, Anne. It will mean extra work for you.
My eyes are bad, so you'll have to make their clothes. And you don't like sewing."
"I do hate sewing," said Anne calmly, "but it's good for people to do things they don't like . . . in moderation."
A few weeks later, Mrs. Lynde was sitting at her kitchen window, knitting.
Five years previously, Mrs. Lynde had sat at the same window
and watched Matthew Cuthbert drive past with Anne when the young girl first arrived in Avonlea.
"There's Marilla coming home from her cousin's funeral," Mrs. Lynde said to her husband, "and she's got the twins with her.
Yes, there's Davy trying to grab the pony's tail and Marilla jerking him back. Dora's sitting up straight.
She always looks as if she's just been starched and ironed."
The pony jogged past the Lyndes' farm and along the lane to Green Gables. Marilla's face was rather grim.
She could not make Davy sit still and worried that he might fall off the buggy and break his neck.
In despair she finally threatened to smack him.
Whereupon Davy climbed into her lap, flung his chubby arms about her neck, and gave her a bear-like hug.
"I don't believe you mean it," Davy said, touching her wrinkled cheek affectionately.
"You don't look like a lady who'd smack a little boy.
Didn't you find it hard to keep still when you were little?"
"No, I always kept still when I was told," said Marilla, trying to speak sternly but warming to Davy's hugs.
"Well, I suppose that was because you're a girl," said Davy.
"Dora can sit still. But it's not as fun."
"How can you be such a naughty boy when your poor mother's funeral was today?" demanded Marilla despairingly.
"But she was glad to die," said Davy confidentially.
"I know, because she told me so. Mother was tired of being sick.
We had a long talk before she died.
She said you would take me and Dora, and I would be a good boy."
They arrived at Green Gables, and Anne greeted them.
Dora calmly allowed herself to be kissed, but Davy gave Anne a hearty hug and cheerfully announced, "I'm Mr. Davy Keith."