But it was not at Jane, Anne gazed that day in dismay and surprise. It was at Ruby Gillis, who sat beside her in the choir. What had happened to Ruby? She was even handsomer than ever; but her blue eyes were too bright and lustrous, and the color of her cheeks was hectically brilliant; besides, she was very thin; the hands that held her hymnbook were almost transparent in their delicacy.
“Is Ruby Gillis ill?” Anne asked of Mrs. Lynde, as they went home from church.
“Ruby Gillis is dying of galloping consumption,” said Mrs. Lynde bluntly. “Everybody knows it except herself and her FAMILY. They won’t give in. If you ask THEM, she’s perfectly well. She hasn’t been able to teach since she had that attack of congestion in the winter, but she says she’s going to teach again in the fall, and she’s after the White Sands school. She’ll be in her grave, poor girl, when White Sands school opens, that’s what.”
Anne listened in shocked silence. Ruby Gillis, her old school-chum, dying? Could it be possible? Of late years they had grown apart; but the old tie of schoolgirl intimacy was there, and made itself felt sharply in the tug the news gave at Anne’s heartstrings. Ruby, the brilliant, the merry, the coquettish! It was impossible to associate the thought of her with anything like death. She had greeted Anne with gay cordiality after church, and urged her to come up the next evening.
“I’ll be away Tuesday and Wednesday evenings,” she had whispered triumphantly. “There’s a concert at Carmody and a party at White Sands. Herb Spencer’s going to take me. He’s my LATEST. Be sure to come up tomorrow. I’m dying for a good talk with you. I want to hear all about your doings at Redmond.”
Anne knew that Ruby meant that she wanted to tell Anne all about her own recent flirtations, but she promised to go, and Diana offered to go with her.
“I’ve been wanting to go to see Ruby for a long while,” she told Anne, when they left Green Gables the next evening, “but I really couldn’t go alone. It’s so awful to hear Ruby rattling on as she does, and pretending there is nothing the matter with her, even when she can hardly speak for coughing. She’s fighting so hard for her life, and yet she hasn’t any chance at all, they say.”
The girls walked silently down the red, twilit road. The robins were singing vespers in the high treetops, filling the golden air with their jubilant voices. The silver fluting of the frogs came from marshes and ponds, over fields where seeds were beginning to stir with life and thrill to the sunshine and rain that had drifted over them. The air was fragrant with the wild, sweet, wholesome smell of young raspberry copses. White mists were hovering in the silent hollows and violet stars were shining bluely on the brooklands.
“What a beautiful sunset,” said Diana. “Look, Anne, it’s just like a land in itself, isn’t it? That long, low back of purple cloud is the shore, and the clear sky further on is like a golden sea.”
“If we could sail to it in the moonshine boat Paul wrote of in his old composition — you remember? — how nice it would be,” said Anne, rousing from her reverie. “Do you think we could find all our yesterdays there, Diana — all our old springs and blossoms? The beds of flowers that Paul saw there are the roses that have bloomed for us in the past?”
“Don’t!” said Diana. “You make me feel as if we were old women with everything in life behind us.”
“I think I’ve almost felt as if we were since I heard about poor Ruby,” said Anne. “If it is true that she is dying any other sad thing might be true, too.”
“You don’t mind calling in at Elisha Wright’s for a moment, do you?” asked Diana. “Mother asked me to leave this little dish of jelly for Aunt Atossa.”
“Who is Aunt Atossa?”
“Oh, haven’t you heard? She’s Mrs. Samson Coates of Spencervale — Mrs. Elisha Wright’s aunt. She’s father’s aunt, too. Her husband died last winter and she was left very poor and lonely, so the Wrights took her to live with them. Mother thought we ought to take her, but father put his foot down. Live with Aunt Atossa he would not.”
“Is she so terrible?” asked Anne absently.
“You’ll probably see what she’s like before we can get away,” said Diana significantly. “Father says she has a face like a hatchet — it cuts the air. But her tongue is sharper still.”
Late as it was Aunt Atossa was cutting potato sets in the Wright kitchen. She wore a faded old wrapper, and her gray hair was decidedly untidy. Aunt Atossa did not like being “caught in a kilter,” so she went out of her way to be disagreeable.
“Oh, so you’re Anne Shirley?” she said, when Diana introduced Anne. “I’ve heard of you.” Her tone implied that she had heard nothing good. “Mrs. Andrews was telling me you were home. She said you had improved a good deal.”
There was no doubt Aunt Atossa thought there was plenty of room for further improvement. She ceased not from cutting sets with much energy.
“Is it any use to ask you to sit down?” she inquired sarcastically. “Of course, there’s nothing very entertaining here for you. The rest are all away.”
“Mother sent you this little pot of rhubarb jelly,” said Diana pleasantly. “She made it today and thought you might like some.”
“Oh, thanks,” said Aunt Atossa sourly. “I never fancy your mother’s jelly — she always makes it too sweet. However, I’ll try to worry some down. My appetite’s been dreadful poor this spring. I’m far from well,” continued Aunt Atossa solemnly, “but still I keep a-doing. People who can’t work aren’t wanted here. If it isn’t too much trouble will you be condescending enough to set the jelly in the pantry? I’m in a hurry to get these spuds done tonight. I suppose you two LADIES never do anything like this. You’d be afraid of spoiling your hands.”
“I used to cut potato sets before we rented the farm,” smiled Anne.
“I do it yet,” laughed Diana. “I cut sets three days last week. Of course,” she added teasingly, “I did my hands up in lemon juice and kid gloves every night after it.”
Aunt Atossa sniffed.
“I suppose you got that notion out of some of those silly magazines you read so many of. I wonder your mother allows you. But she always spoiled you. We all thought when George married her she wouldn’t be a suitable wife for him.”
Aunt Atossa sighed heavily, as if all forebodings upon the occasion of George Barry’s marriage had been amply and darkly fulfilled.
“Going, are you?” she inquired, as the girls rose. “Well, I suppose you can’t find much amusement talking to an old woman like me. It’s such a pity the boys ain’t home.”
“We want to run in and see Ruby Gillis a little while,” explained Diana.
“Oh, anything does for an excuse, of course,” said Aunt Atossa, amiably. “Just whip in and whip out before you have time to say how-do decently. It’s college airs, I s’pose. You’d be wiser to keep away from Ruby Gillis. The doctors say consumption’s catching. I always knew Ruby’d get something, gadding off to Boston last fall for a visit. People who ain’t content to stay home always catch something.”
“People who don’t go visiting catch things, too. Sometimes they even die,” said Diana solemnly.
“Then they don’t have themselves to blame for it,” retorted Aunt Atossa triumphantly. “I hear you are to be married in June, Diana.”
“There is no truth in that report,” said Diana, blushing.
“Well, don’t put it off too long,” said Aunt Atossa significantly. “You’ll fade soon — you’re all complexion and hair. And the Wrights are terrible fickle. You ought to