Hello.
Welcome to Sleep Stories with Steph,
Your go-to romantic podcast that guarantees you a calm and entertaining transition into a great night's sleep.
Come with me as we immerse ourselves in a romantic journey to a time long since forgotten.
But before we begin,
Let's take a moment to focus on where we are now.
Take a deep breath in through your nose and let it out with a long sigh.
That's it.
Now close your eyes and feel yourself sink deeper into the support beneath you.
It is time to relax and fully let go.
There is nothing you need to be doing now and nowhere you need to go.
Happy listening.
Anne of Avonlea This is the second book in the Anne of Green Gables series.
I am delighted to present to you Anne as she has now grown up into an elegant teenager.
Come with me as we hear all the trials and tribulations as she continues on her journey to womanhood.
Chapter 20 The Way It Often Happens Anne rose betimes the next morning and blithely greeted the fresh day where the banners of the sunrise were shaking triumphantly across the pearly skies.
Green Gables lay in a pool of sunshine flexed with the dancing shadows of poplar and willow.
Beyond,
The land was Mr Harrison's Beyond,
The land was Mr Harrison's wheat field,
A great wind-rippled expanse of pale gold.
The world was so beautiful that Anne spent ten blissful minutes hanging idly over the garden gate,
Drinking the loveliness in.
After breakfast,
Marilla made ready for her journey.
Dora was to go with her,
Having been long promised this treat.
Now,
Davy,
You try and be a good boy and don't bother Anne.
She straightly charged him.
If you're good,
I'll bring you a striped candy cane from town.
For alas,
Marilla had stooped to the evil habit of bribing people to be good.
It won't be bad on purpose,
But supposing on bad's accidentally,
Davy wanted to know.
You'll have to guard against accidents,
Admonished Marilla.
Anne,
If Mr Shearer comes today,
Get a nice roast and some steak.
If he doesn't,
You'll have to kill a fowl for dinner tomorrow.
Anne nodded.
I'm not going to bother cooking any dinner for Davy and myself today,
She said.
That cold hambone will do for noon lunch,
And I'll have some steak fried for you when you come home at night.
I'm going to help Mr Harrison all dulse this morning,
Announced Davy.
He asked me to,
And I guess he'll ask me to dinner too.
Mr Harrison's an awful kind man.
He's a real sociable man.
I hope I'll be like him when I grow up.
I mean,
Behave like him.
I don't want to look like him,
But I guess there's no danger.
But Mrs Lynn says I'm a very handsome child.
Do you suppose it will allow me to be a good boy?
Mrs Lynn says I'm a very handsome child.
Do you suppose it will ask,
Anne?
I want to know.
I dare say it will,
Said Anne gravely.
You are a handsome boy,
Davy.
Marilla looked in volumes of disapproval.
But you must live up to it and be just as nice and gentlemanly as you look to be.
And you told Mini-May Barry the other day when you found her crying because someone said she was ugly,
If she was nice and kind and loving,
People wouldn't mind her looks,
Said Davy discontentedly.
Seems to me you can't get out of being good in this world for some reason or another.
You just have to behave.
Don't you want to be good?
Asked Marilla,
Who had learned a great deal but had not yet learned the futility of asking such questions.
Yes,
I want to be good,
But not too good,
Said Davy cautiously.
You don't have to be very good to be a Sunday school superintendent.
Mr Bell's that and he's a really bad man.
Indeed he's not,
Said Marilla indignantly.
He is,
He says he is himself,
Said Davy.
He said it when he played in Sunday school last Sunday.
He said he was a vile worm and a miserable sinner and guilty of the blank iniquity.
What did he do that was so bad,
Marilla?
Did he kill anyone or steal the collection cents?
I want to know.
Fortunately,
Mrs Linde came driving up the lane at this moment and Marilla made off,
Feeling that she had escaped from the snare of the fowler and wishing devoutly that Mr Bell was not quite so highly figurative in his public petitions,
Especially in the hearing of small boys who were always wanting to know.
Ann,
Left alone in her glory,
Worked with a will.
The floor was swept,
The beds made,
The hens fed,
The muslin dress washed and hung out on the line.
Then Ann prepared for the transfer of feathers.
She mounted to the garret and donned the first old dress that came to hand,
A navy blue cashmere she'd worn at 14.
It was decidedly on the short side and as simply as the noticeable wincy Ann had worn upon the occasion of her debut at Gwynne Cables.
But at least it would not be materially injured by down and feathers.
Ann completed her toilet by tying a big red and white spotted handkerchief that had belonged to Matthew over her head.
Ann,
Thus accosted,
Betook herself to the kitchen chamber with a marilla before her departure had helped her carry the feather bed.
A cracked mirror hung by the chamber window and in an unlucky moment,
Ann looked into it.
There were those seven freckles on her nose,
More rampant than ever,
Or so it seemed in the glare of light from the unshaded window.
Oh,
I forgot to rub that lotion on last night.
She thought,
I better run down to the pantry and do it now.
Ann had already suffered many things trying to remove those freckles.
On one occasion,
The entire skin had peeled off her nose,
But the freckles remained.
On another,
She had found a recipe for a freckle lotion in a magazine and as the ingredients were within her reach,
She had found the recipe.
She straight away compounded it,
Much to the disgust of Marilla,
Who thought that if Providence had placed freckles on your nose,
It was your burden to carry.
Ann scurried down to the pantry,
Which always dimmed from the big willow growing close to the window,
Was now almost dark by reason of the shade drawn to exclude flies.
Ann caught the bottle containing the lotion from the shelf and copiously anointed her nose there with,
By means of a little sponge,
Sacred to the purpose.
This important duty done,
She returned to her work.
Anyone who's ever shifted feathers from one tick to another will need not to be told that when Ann finished,
She was a sight to behold.
Her dress was white with down and fluff and her front hair,
Escaping from under the handkerchief,
Was adorned with a veritable halo of feathers.
At this auspicious moment,
A knock sounded at the kitchen door.
That must be Mr.
Shearer,
Thought Ann.
I'm in a dreadful mess,
But I'll have to run down as I am for he's always in a hurry.
Down flew Ann to the kitchen door.
If ever a charitable floor did open to swallow up a miserable befeathered damsel,
The green gables porch floor should promptly have engulfed Ann at that moment.
On the doorstep were standing Priscilla Grant,
Golden and fair in silk attire,
A short,
Stout,
Grey-haired lady in a tweed suit,
And another lady,
Tall,
Stately,
Wonderfully gowned,
With a beautiful hybrid face and large,
Black-lashed,
Violet eyes,
Who Ann instinctively felt as if she would have said in her early days,
To be Mrs.
Charlotte E.
Mortman.
In this dismay of the moment,
One thought stood out from the confusion of Ann's mind,
And she grasped at it as the proverbial straw.
All Mrs.
Mortman's heroines were noted for rising to the occasion.
No matter what their troubles were,
They invariably rose to the occasion and showed their superiority over all ills of time,
Space,
And quantity.
Ann,
Therefore,
Felt it was her duty to rise to the occasion,
And she did it so perfectly that Priscilla afterward declared she never admired Ann Shirley more than at that moment.
No matter what her outraged feelings were,
She did not show them.
She greeted Priscilla and was introduced to her companions as calmly and composedly as if she'd been sprayed in purple and fine linen.
To be sure,
It was somewhat of a shock to find the lady she'd instinctively felt to be Mrs.
Morgan was not Mrs.
Morgan at all,
But an unknown Mrs.
Pendexter,
While the stout little grey-haired woman was Mrs.
Morgan.
But in the greatest shock,
The lesser lost its power.
Ann ushered her guests to the spare room and thence into the parlour,
Where she left them while she hastened out to help Priscilla unharness the horse.
It's dreadful to come across you so unexpectedly as this.
Apologise,
Priscilla,
But I did not know till last night we were coming.
Aunt Charlotte's going away Monday and she promised to spend a day with a friend in town,
But last night her friend telephoned not to come because they were quarantined for scarlet fever.
So I suggested we come here instead,
For I knew you were longing to see her.
We called at the White Sands Hotel and brought Mrs.
Pendexter with us.
She's a friend of Aunt's and lives in New York,
And her husband's a millionaire.
We really can't stay very long,
For Mrs.
Pendexter has to be back at the hotel by five o'clock.
Several times when they were putting away the horse,
Ann caught Priscilla looking at her in a furtive,
Puzzled way.
She didn't stare at me so,
Ann thought a little resentfully.
She doesn't know what it is to change a feather bed,
She might imagine it.
When Priscilla had gone to the parlour and before Ann could escape upstairs,
Diana walked into the kitchen.
Ann caught her astonished friend by the arm.
Who do you suppose is in the parlour at this very moment?
Mrs.
Charlotte E.
Morgan and a New York millionaire's wife.
And here I am like this,
Not a thing in the house for dinner but a cold hand bone,
Diana.
By this time Ann had become aware Diana was staring at her in precisely the same bewildered fashion as Priscilla had done.
It really was too much.
Oh Diana,
Don't look at me so,
She implored.
You at least must know that the neatest person in the world couldn't empty feathers from one tick into another and remain neat in the process.
It isn't the feathers,
Hesitated Diana.
It's your nose,
Ann.
My nose?
Oh Diana,
Surely nothing's gone wrong with my nose?
Ann rushed to the little looking glass over the sink.
One glance revealed the fatal truth.
Her nose was brilliant scarlet.
Ann sat down on the sofa,
Her dauntless spirit subdued at last.
What is the matter with it?
Asked Diana,
Curiosity overcoming delicacy.
I thought I was rubbing my freckle lotion on it but I must have used that red dye Marilla has for marking the pattern on her rugs.
It was a despairing response.
What shall I do?
Wash it off,
Said Diana practically.
Perhaps it won't wash off.
First I dye my hair,
Then I dye my nose.
Marilla cut my hair off when I dyed it but that remedy would hardly be practicable in this case.
Well this is another punishment for vanity and I suppose I deserve it,
Said Ann.
There's not much comfort in that.
Well it is almost enough to make one believe in ill luck,
Although Mrs Lynn said there's no such thing because everything is foreordained.
Fortunately the dye washed off easily and Ann,
Somewhat consoled,
Betook herself to the east gable while Diana ran home.
Presently Ann came down again,
Clothed and in her right mind.
The muslin dress she'd hoped to wear was bobbing merrily about on the line outside so she was forced to content herself with her black lawn.
She had the fire on and the tea steeping when Diana returned.
The latter wore her muslin at least and carried covered platter in her hand.
Mother sent you this,
She said,
Lifting the cover and displaying a nicely carved and jointed chicken to Ann's grateful eyes.
The chicken was supplemented by light new bread,
Excellent butter and cheese,
Marilla's fruitcake and a dish of preserved plums floating in their golden syrup as in congealed summer sunshine.
There was a large bowl full of pink and white asters also,
By a big way of decoration,
Yet the spread seemed very meagre beside the elaborate one formally prepared for Mrs Morgan.
Ann's hungry guests,
However,
Didn't seem to think anything was lacking and they ate the simple viands with apparent enjoyment,
But after the first few moments Ann thought no more of what was or was not on her bill of fare.
Mrs Morgan's appearance might be somewhat disappointing,
As even her loyal worshippers had been forced to admit to each other,
But she proved to be a delightful conversationist.
She had travelled extensively and was an excellent storyteller.
She had seen much of men and women and crystallised her experiences into witty little sentences and epigrams which made her hearers feel as if they were listening to one of the people in clever books.
But under all her sparkle there was a strongly felt undercurrent of true womanly sympathy and kind-heartedness which won affection as easily as her brilliancy won admiration.
Nor did she monopolise the conversation.
She could draw others out as skilfully and fully as she could talk herself and Ann and Diana found themselves chattering freely to her.
Mrs Pendexter said little.
She merely smiled with her lovely eyes and lips and ate chicken and fruitcake and preserve with such exquisite grace that she conveyed the impression of dining on ambrosia and honeydew.
But then,
As Ann said to Diana later on,
Anybody so divinely beautiful as Mrs Pendexter didn't need to talk.
It was enough for her just to look.
After dinner they all had a walk through Lovers Lane and Violet Vale and the Birch Path,
Then back through the Haunted Wood to the Dryads' Bubble where they sat down and talked for a delightful last half hour.
Mrs Morgan wanted to know how the Haunted Wood came by its name and laughed until she cried when she heard the story and Ann's dramatic account of a certain memorable walk through it at the witching hour of twilight.
It has been a feast of reason and flow of soul,
Hasn't it?
Said Ann when her guests had gone and she and Diana were alone again.
I don't know which I enjoyed more,
Listening to Mrs Morgan or gazing at Mrs Pendexter.
I believe we had a nicer time than if we'd known they were coming.
We might have been cumbered with much serving.
You must stay to tea with me,
Diana,
And we'll talk it over.
Priscilla says Mrs Pendexter's husband's sister's married to an English Earl and yet she took a second helping of the plum preserves,
Said Diana,
As if the two facts were somehow incompatible.
I dare say even the English Earl himself wouldn't have turned up his aristocratic nose at Marilla's plum preserves,
Said Ann proudly.
Ann did not mention the misfortune which had befallen her nose when she related the day's history to Marilla that evening,
But she took the bottle of freckled lotion and emptied it out of the window.
I shall never try any beautifying messes again,
She said,
Darkly resolute.
They may do for careful,
Deliberate people,
But for anyone so hopelessly given over to making mistakes as I seem to be,
It's tempting fate to meddle with.
