CHAPTER IX

Mrs. Rachel Lynde Is Properly Horrified


Anne had been a fortnight at Green Gables before Mrs.
Lynde arrived to inspect her. Mrs. Rachel, to do her
justice, was not to blame for this. A severe and
unseasonable attack of grippe had confined that good
lady to her house ever since the occasion of her last
visit to Green Gables. Mrs. Rachel was not often sick
and had a well-defined contempt for people who were;
but grippe, she asserted, was like no other illness on
earth and could only be interpreted as one of the special
visitations of Providence. As soon as her doctor allowed
her to put her foot out-of-doors she hurried up to Green
Gables, bursting with curiosity to see Matthew and Marilla's
orphan, concerning whom all sorts of stories and suppositions
had gone abroad in Avonlea.

Anne had made good use of every waking moment of that fortnight.
Already she was acquainted with every tree and shrub about the
place. She had discovered that a lane opened out below the apple
orchard and ran up through a belt of woodland; and she had
explored it to its furthest end in all its delicious vagaries of
brook and bridge, fir coppice and wild cherry arch, corners thick
with fern, and branching byways of maple and mountain ash.