For a few minutes nobody spoke. The girls were too nervous to find words, and neither the ancient ladies nor the china dogs seemed conversationally inclined. Anne glanced about the room. What a dear place it was! Another door opened out of it directly into the pine grove and the robins came boldly up on the very step. The floor was spotted with round, braided mats, such as Marilla made at Green Gables, but which were considered out of date everywhere else, even in Avonlea. And yet here they were on Spofford Avenue! A big, polished grandfather’s clock ticked loudly and solemnly in a corner. There were delightful little cupboards over the mantelpiece, behind whose glass doors gleamed quaint bits of china. The walls were hung with old prints and silhouettes. In one corner the stairs went up, and at the first low turn was a long window with an inviting seat. It was all just as Anne had known it must be.
By this time the silence had grown too dreadful, and Priscilla nudged Anne to intimate that she must speak.
“We — we — saw by your sign that this house is to let,” said Anne faintly, addressing the older lady, who was evidently Miss Patty Spofford.
“Oh, yes,” said Miss Patty. “I intended to take that sign down today.”
“Then — then we are too late,” said Anne sorrowfully. “You’ve let it to some one else?”
“No, but we have decided not to let it at all.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” exclaimed Anne impulsively. “I love this place so. I did hope we could have got it.”
Then did Miss Patty lay down her knitting, take off her specs, rub them, put them on again, and for the first time look at Anne as at a human being. The other lady followed her example so perfectly that she might as well have been a reflection in a mirror.
“You LOVE it,” said Miss Patty with emphasis. “Does that mean that you really LOVE it? Or that you merely like the looks of it? The girls nowadays indulge in such exaggerated statements that one never can tell what they DO mean. It wasn’t so in my young days. THEN a girl did not say she LOVED turnips, in just the same tone as she might have said she loved her mother or her Savior.”
Anne’s conscience bore her up.
“I really do love it,” she said gently. “I’ve loved it ever since I saw it last fall. My two college chums and I want to keep house next year instead of boarding, so we are looking for a little place to rent; and when I saw that this house was to let I was so happy.”
“If you love it, you can have it,” said Miss Patty. “Maria and I decided today that we would not let it after all, because we did not like any of the people who have wanted it. We don’t HAVE to let it. We can afford to go to Europe even if we don’t let it. It would help us out, but not for gold will I let my home pass into the possession of such people as have come here and looked at it. YOU are different. I believe you do love it and will be good to it. You can have it.”
“If — if we can afford to pay what you ask for it,” hesitated Anne.
Miss Patty named the amount required. Anne and Priscilla looked at each other. Priscilla shook her head.
“I’m afraid we can’t afford quite so much,” said Anne, choking back her disappointment. “You see, we are only college girls and we are poor.”
“What were you thinking you could afford?” demanded Miss Patty, ceasing not to knit.
Anne named her amount. Miss Patty nodded gravely.
“That will do. As I told you, it is not strictly necessary that we should let it at all. We are not rich, but we have enough to go to Europe on. I have never been in Europe in my life, and never expected or wanted to go. But my niece there, Maria Spofford, has taken a fancy to go. Now, you know a young person like Maria can’t go globetrotting alone.”
“No — I — I suppose not,” murmured Anne, seeing that Miss Patty was quite solemnly in earnest.
“Of course not. So I have to go along to look after her. I expect to enjoy it, too; I’m seventy years old, but I’m not tired of living yet. I daresay I’d have gone to Europe before if the idea had occurred to me. We shall be away for two years, perhaps three. We sail in June and we shall send you the key, and leave all in order for you to take possession when you choose. We shall pack away a few things we prize especially, but all the rest will be left.”
“Will you leave the china dogs?” asked Anne timidly.
“Would you like me to?”
“Oh, indeed, yes. They are delightful.”
A pleased expression came into Miss Patty’s face.
“I think a great deal of those dogs,” she said proudly. “They are over a hundred years old, and they have sat on either side of this fireplace ever since my brother Aaron brought them from London fifty years ago. Spofford Avenue was called after my brother Aaron.”
“A fine man he was,” said Miss Maria, speaking for the first time. “Ah, you don’t see the like of him nowadays.”
“He was a good uncle to you, Maria,” said Miss Patty, with evident emotion. “You do well to remember him.”
“I shall always remember him,” said Miss Maria solemnly. “I can see him, this minute, standing there before that fire, with his hands under his coat-tails, beaming on us.”
Miss Maria took out her handkerchief and wiped her eyes; but Miss Patty came resolutely back from the regions of sentiment to those of business.
“I shall leave the dogs where they are, if you will promise to be very careful of them,” she said. “Their names are Gog and Magog. Gog looks to the right and Magog to the left. And there’s just one thing more. You don’t object, I hope, to this house being called Patty’s Place?”
“No, indeed. We think that is one of the nicest things about it.”
“You have sense, I see,” said Miss Patty in a tone of great satisfaction. “Would you believe it? All the people who came here to rent the house wanted to know if they couldn’t take the name off the gate during their occupation of it. I told them roundly that the name went with the house. This has been Patty’s Place ever since my brother Aaron left it to me in his will, and Patty’s Place it shall remain until I die and Maria dies. After that happens the next possessor can call it any fool name he likes,” concluded Miss Patty, much as she might have said, “After that — the deluge.” “And now, wouldn’t you like to go over the house and see it all before we consider the bargain made?”
Further exploration still further delighted the girls. Besides the big livingroom, there was a kitchen and a small bedroom downstairs. Upstairs were three rooms, one large and two small. Anne took an especial fancy to one of the small ones, looking out into the big pines, and hoped it would be hers. It was papered in pale blue and had a little, old-timey toilet table with sconces for candles. There was a diamond-paned window with a seat under the blue muslin frills that would be a satisfying spot for studying or dreaming.
“It’s all so delicious that I know we are going to wake up and find it a fleeting vision of the night,” said Priscilla as they went away.
“Miss Patty and Miss Maria are hardly such stuff as dreams are made of,” laughed Anne. “Can you fancy them ‘globetrotting’ — especially in those shawls and caps?”
“I suppose they’ll take them off when they really begin to trot,” said Priscilla, “but I know they’ll take their knitting with them everywhere. They simply couldn’t be parted from it. They will walk about Westminster Abbey and knit, I feel sure. Meanwhile, Anne, we shall be living in Patty’s Place — and on Spofford Avenue. I feel like a millionairess