such a place LIVING at all.

"It's just STAYING, that's what," she said as she
stepped along the deep-rutted, grassy lane bordered with
wild rose bushes. "It's no wonder Matthew and Marilla are
both a little odd, living away back here by themselves.
Trees aren't much company, though dear knows if they were
there'd be enough of them. I'd ruther look at people.
To be sure, they seem contented enough; but then, I suppose,
they're used to it. A body can get used to anything, even to
being hanged, as the Irishman said."

With this Mrs. Rachel stepped out of the lane into the
backyard of Green Gables. Very green and neat and precise
was that yard, set about on one side with great patriarchal
willows and the other with prim Lombardies. Not a stray
stick nor stone was to be seen, for Mrs. Rachel would have
seen it if there had been. Privately she was of the opinion
that Marilla Cuthbert swept that yard over as often as she
swept her house. One could have eaten a meal off the ground
without overbrimming the proverbial peck of dirt.

Mrs. Rachel rapped smartly at the kitchen door and
stepped in when bidden to do so. The kitchen at Green
Gables was a cheerful apartment--or would have been cheerful
if it had not been so painfully clean as to give 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