ANNE OF GREEN GABLES

By Lucy Maud Montgomery

Table of Contents

CHAPTER I Mrs. Rachel Lynde Is Surprised
CHAPTER II Matthew Cuthbert Is Surprised
CHAPTER III Marilla Cuthbert Is Surprised
CHAPTER IV Morning at Green Gables
CHAPTER V Anne’s History
CHAPTER VI Marilla Makes Up Her Mind
CHAPTER VII Anne Says Her Prayers
CHAPTER VIII Anne’s Bringing-up Is Begun
CHAPTER IX Mrs. Rachel Lynde Is Properly Horrified
CHAPTER X Anne’s Apology
CHAPTER XI Anne’s Impressions of Sunday-school
CHAPTER XII A Solemn Vow and Promise
CHAPTER XIII The Delights of Anticipation
CHAPTER XIV Anne’s Confession
CHAPTER XV A Tempest in the School Teapot
CHAPTER XVI Diana Is Invited to Tea with Tragic Results
CHAPTER XVII A New Interest in Life
CHAPTER XVIII Anne to the Rescue
CHAPTER XIX A Concert, a Catastrophe, and a Confession
CHAPTER XX A Good Imagination Gone Wrong
CHAPTER XXI A New Departure in Flavorings
CHAPTER XXII Anne Is Invited Out to Tea
CHAPTER XXIII Anne Comes to Grief in an Affair of Honor
CHAPTER XXIV Miss Stacy and Her Pupils Get Up a Concert
CHAPTER XXV Matthew Insists on Puffed Sleeves
CHAPTER XXVI The Story Club Is Formed
CHAPTER XXVII Vanity and Vexation of Spirit
CHAPTER XXVIII An Unfortunate Lily Maid
CHAPTER XXIX An Epoch in Anne’s Life
CHAPTER XXX The Queen’s Class Is Organized
CHAPTER XXXI Where the Brook and River Meet
CHAPTER XXXII The Pass List Is Out
CHAPTER XXXIII The Hotel Concert
CHAPTER XXXIV A Queen’s Girl
CHAPTER XXXV The Winter at Queen’s
CHAPTER XXXVI The Glory and the Dream
CHAPTER XXXVII The Reaper Whose Name Is Death
CHAPTER XXXVIII The Bend in the Road

ANNE OF GREEN GABLES

CHAPTER I. Mrs. Rachel Lynde Is Surprised

Mrs. Rachel Lynde lived right where the main road through Avonlea dipped into a small hollow lined with alder bushes and fuchsias. A brook ran through it—one that started far back in the woods of the old Cuthbert property. Deep in those woods it was said to be a wild, tumbling stream, full of hidden pools and little waterfalls. But by the time it reached Lynde’s Hollow, it had calmed into a quiet, well-behaved little creek. Even a brook, it seemed, couldn’t rush carelessly past Mrs. Rachel Lynde’s door. It was as if the water itself knew she was watching from her window, keeping track of everyone and everything that passed by—brooks included—and that if she spotted anything unusual, she wouldn’t rest until she’d figured out exactly why.

Plenty of people in Avonlea, and elsewhere, manage to keep close tabs on their neighbors by ignoring their own responsibilities. Mrs. Rachel Lynde was not one of them. She was the rare kind of person who could run her own household perfectly and keep up with everyone else’s business at the same time. She was an excellent homemaker—her work was always finished and finished well. She led the Sewing Circle, helped run Sunday school, and was one of the strongest supporters of the Church Aid Society and the Foreign Missions group. Yet somehow she still found hours to sit at her kitchen window, knitting quilts—she had made sixteen of them, a fact Avonlea housewives repeated in hushed, admiring tones—while keeping a close eye on the road that crossed the hollow and climbed the steep red hill beyond.

Avonlea sat on a small triangle of land jutting into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, water on two sides. That meant anyone entering or leaving town had to travel that hill road—and pass, whether they liked it or not, under Mrs. Rachel’s watchful gaze.

One afternoon in early June, she was sitting there as usual. Sunlight poured warm and bright through the window. Below the house, the orchard was covered in delicate pink-and-white blossoms, buzzing with bees. Thomas Lynde—a mild, quiet man whom the neighbors called “Rachel Lynde’s husband”—was out planting late turnip seed in the hill field beyond the barn. Matthew Cuthbert should have been doing the same, in his own field across the way at Green Gables. Mrs. Rachel knew this because she’d overheard him tell Peter Morrison, the evening before at William J. Blair’s store in Carmody, that he planned to sow his turnip seed the next afternoon. Peter had asked him directly, of course—Matthew Cuthbert had never once in his life offered information without being asked.

And yet here was Matthew Cuthbert, at half-past three in the afternoon on what should have been a busy workday, calmly driving over the hollow and up the hill. What’s more, he was wearing a white collar and his best suit—clear proof he was heading out of Avonlea entirely—and he had taken the buggy and the sorrel mare, which meant he was going some distance. So where exactly was Matthew Cuthbert going, and why?

If it had been any other man in Avonlea, Mrs. Rachel could probably have puzzled out both answers easily enough. But Matthew almost never left home. Something urgent or unusual must be pulling him away, since he was the shyest man alive and hated dealing with strangers or unfamiliar places. Matthew, dressed up and driving off in the buggy, was not a common sight. No matter how she turned it over in her mind, Mrs. Rachel couldn’t make sense of it, and it ruined her entire afternoon.

“I’ll just step over to Green Gables after supper and ask Marilla where he’s gone and why,” she finally decided. “He doesn’t usually go into town this time of year, and he never pays social visits. If he’d run out of turnip seed, he wouldn’t bother dressing up and taking the buggy just to buy more. And he wasn’t driving fast enough to be fetching a doctor. Still, something must have happened since last night to send him off like this. I won’t have a moment’s peace until I find out what took Matthew Cuthbert out of Avonlea today.”

So after supper, Mrs. Rachel set out. She didn’t have far to go—the large, sprawling house surrounded by orchards where the Cuthberts lived was barely a quarter mile up the road from Lynde’s Hollow, though the long lane leading up to it made the walk feel longer. Matthew Cuthbert’s father, just as shy and quiet as his son, had built the homestead as far from his neighbors as he could manage without moving straight into the forest. Green Gables stood at the very edge of the cleared land, barely visible from the main road where all the other Avonlea houses sat sociably in view. In Mrs. Rachel’s opinion, living in such an out-of-the-way spot barely counted as living at all.

“It’s just existing, that’s what it is,” she muttered, walking along the rutted, grassy lane bordered with wild rose bushes. “No wonder Matthew and Marilla are both a little strange, living back here all by themselves. Trees aren’t much company, though there are certainly enough of them around. I’d rather look at people myself. Still, they seem content enough—but I suppose you can get used to anything, even being hanged, as the saying goes.”

With that thought, Mrs. Rachel stepped out of the lane and into the backyard of Green Gables. It was a neat, tidy space, lined on one side with tall old willow trees and on the other with straight, orderly Lombardy poplars. Not a stray stick or stone lay anywhere—Mrs. Rachel would certainly have noticed if there had been. Privately, she suspected Marilla Cuthbert swept that yard just as often as she swept her floors. You could have eaten a meal off the bare ground.

Mrs. Rachel knocked briskly at the kitchen door and stepped inside as soon as she was told to come in. The kitchen at Green Gables was a pleasant room—or would have been, if it hadn’t been kept so spotlessly clean that it looked almost like an unused parlor rather than a lived-in space. It had windows facing east and west. Through the west one, which looked out onto the backyard, streamed warm afternoon sunlight. The east window offered a glimpse of blossoming cherry trees in the left orchard and slender birch trees swaying by the brook below—but it was mostly shaded by a tangle of climbing vines. This is where Marilla Cuthbert sat, whenever she sat at all, always a little wary of sunlight, which struck her as too playful and carefree for a world that ought to be taken seriously. She sat there now, knitting, with the table behind her already set for supper.

Before she’d even fully closed the door, Mrs. Rachel had mentally catalogued everything on that table. Three plates were laid out, meaning Marilla must be expecting company along with Matthew for tea—but the dishes were ordinary everyday ones, and there was only crab-apple preserves and a single kind of cake. So whoever was coming couldn’t be anyone particularly important. Then what explained Matthew’s white collar and the sorrel mare? Mrs. Rachel’s head was practically spinning trying to solve the mystery of quiet, predictable Green Gables.

“Good evening, Rachel,” Marilla said briskly. “Lovely evening, isn’t it? Sit down. How’s your family?”

Something that might loosely be called friendship existed between Marilla Cuthbert and Mrs. Rachel—maybe because of their differences rather than in spite of them.

Marilla was tall and thin, all sharp angles with no soft curves. Her dark hair, streaked with gray, was always twisted into a tight knot at the back of her head, pinned firmly in place with two wire hairpins. She looked like a woman of narrow experience and strict principles—which she was—but there was something about the shape of her mouth that, if it had been just slightly different, might have suggested a sense of humor.

“We’re all doing fine,” said Mrs. Rachel. “Though I did wonder if something was wrong with you, when I saw Matthew heading out today. I thought maybe he was off to see the doctor.”

Marilla’s lips twitched knowingly. She had expected Mrs. Rachel to show up—she knew that the sight of Matthew driving off so mysteriously would be more than her neighbor’s curiosity could bear.

“Oh, no