Chapter 31

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loss. And that night, Marilla sat when Anne had gone to prayer-meeting with Diana, Marilla sat alone in the wintry twilight and indulged in the weakness of a cry. Matthew, coming in (begin subscript)^(end subscript)(begin superscript)with a lantern,(end superscript) caught her at it and gazed at her in such consternation that Marilla had to laugh through her tears.

“I was thinking about Anne,” she explained. “She’s got to be such a big girl – and she’ll probably be away from us next winter. I’ll miss her terrible.”

“She’ll be able to come home often,” comforted Matthew, to whom Anne was as yet and always would be the little eager girl he had brought home from Bright River on that June evening four years before. “The branch railroad will