Page:Anne's house of dreams (1920 Canada).djvu/328

 “Are you going to marry Marshall Elliott?” exclaimed Anne, recovering her power of speech under this second shock.

“Yes. I could have had him any time these twenty years if I’d lifted my finger. But do you suppose I was going to walk into church beside a perambulating haystack like that?”

“I am sure we are very glad—and we wish you all possible happiness,” said Anne, very flatly and inadequately, as she felt. She was not prepared for such an occasion. She had never imagined herself offering betrothal felicitations to Miss Cornelia.

“Thanks, I knew you would,” said Miss Cornelia. “You are the first of my friends to know it.”

“We shall be so sorry to lose you, though, dear Miss Cornelia,” said Anne, beginning to be a little sad and sentimental.

“Oh, you won’t lose me,” said Miss Cornelia unsentimentally. “You don’t suppose I would live over harbor with all those MacAllisters and Elliotts and Crawfords, do you? ‘From the conceit of the Elliotts, the pride of the MacAllisters and the vain-glory of the Crawfords, good Lord deliver us.’ Marshall is coming to live at my place. I’m sick and tired of hired men. That Jim Hastings I’ve got this summer is positively the worst of the species. He would drive anyone to getting married. What do you think? He upset the churn yesterday and spilled a big churning of cream over the yard. And not one whit con-