Anne Of Windy Poplars √ (Project K.)

YEAR 1: CHAPTER 15

Anne went down to Bonnyview on the Friday night before the wedding. The Nelsons were giving a dinner for some family friends and wedding-guests arriving by the boat train. The big, rambling house which was Dr. Nelson's "summer home" was built among spruces on a long point with the bay on both sides and a stretch of golden-breasted dunes beyond that knew all there was to be known about winds.

Anne liked it the moment she saw it. An old stone house always looks reposeful and dignified. It fears not what rain or wind or changing fashion can do. And on this June evening it was bubbling over with young life and excitement, the laughter of girls, the greetings of old friends, buggies coming and going, children running everywhere, gifts arriving, every one in the delightful turmoil of a wedding, while Dr. Nelson's two black cats, who rejoiced in the names of Barnabas and Saul, sat on the railing of the veranda and watched everything like two imperturbable sable sphinxes.

Sally detached herself from a mob and whisked Anne upstairs.

"We've saved the north gable room for you. Of course you'll have to share it with at least three others. There's a perfect riot here. Father's having a tent put up for the boys down among the spruces and later on we can have cots in the glassed-in porch at the back. And we can pack most of the children in the hay-loft of course. Oh, Anne, I'm so excited. It's really no end of fun getting married. My wedding-dress just came from Montreal today. It's a dream . . . cream corded silk with a lace bertha and pearl embroidery. The loveliest gifts have come. This is your bed. Mamie Gray and Dot Fraser and Sis Palmer have the others. Mother wanted to put Amy Stewart here but I wouldn't let her. Amy hates you because she wanted to be my bridesmaid. But I couldn't have any one so fat and dumpy, could I now? Besides, she looks like somebody seasick in Nile green. Oh, Anne, Aunt Mouser is here. She came just a few minutes ago and we're simply horror-stricken. Of course we had to invite her, but we never thought of her coming before tomorrow."

"Who in the world is Aunt Mouser?"

"Dad's aunt, Mrs. James Kennedy. Oh, of course she's really Aunt Grace, but Tommy nicknamed her Aunt Mouser because she's always mousing round pouncing on things we don't want her to find out. There's no escaping her. She even gets up early in the morning for fear of missing something and she's the last to go to bed at night. But that isn't the worst. If there's a wrong thing to say she's certain to say it and she's never learned that there are questions that mustn't be asked. Dad calls her speeches 'Aunt Mouser's felicities.' I know she'll spoil the dinner. Here she comes now."

The door opened and Aunt Mouser came in . . . a fat, brown, pop-eyed little woman, moving in an atmosphere of moth-balls and wearing a chronically worried expression. Except for the expression she really did look a good deal like a hunting pussy-cat.

"So you're the Miss Shirley I've always heard so much of. You ain't a bit like a Miss Shirley I once knew. She had such beautiful eyes. Well, Sally, so you're to be married at last. Poor Nora is the only one left. Well, your mother is lucky to be rid of five of you. Eight years ago I said to her, 'Jane,' sez I, 'do you think you'll ever get all those girls married off?' Well, a man is nothing but trouble as I sees it and of all the uncertain things marriage is the uncertainest, but what else is there for a woman in this world? That's what I've just been saying to poor Nora. 'Mark my words, Nora,' I said to her, 'there isn't much fun in being an old maid. What's Jim Wilcox thinking of?' I said to her."

"Oh, Aunt Grace, I wish you hadn't! Jim and Nora had some sort of a quarrel last January and he's never been round since."

"I believe in saying what I think. Things is better said. I'd heard of that quarrel. That's why I asked her about him. 'It's only right,' I told her, 'that you should know they say he's driving Eleanor Pringle.' She got red and mad and flounced off. What's Vera Johnson doing here? She ain't any relation."