Page:Anne's house of dreams (1920 Canada).djvu/81

 “But just think what a dull world it would be if everyone was sensible,” pleaded Anne.

Miss Cornelia disdained any skirmish of flippant epigram.

“Mrs. Roderick was a Milgrave, and the Milgraves never had much sense. Her nephew, Ebenezer Milgrave, used to be insane for years. He believed he was dead and used to rage at his wife because she wouldn’t bury him. I’d a-done it.”

Miss Cornelia looked so grimly determined that Anne could almost see her with a spade in her hand.

“Don’t you know any good husbands, Miss Bryant?”

“Oh, yes, lots of them—over yonder,” said Miss Cornelia, waving her hand through the open window towards the little graveyard of the church across the harbor.

“But living—going about in the flesh?” persisted Anne.

“Oh, there’s a few, just to show that with God all things are possible,” acknowledged Miss Cornelia reluctantly. “I don’t deny that an odd man here and there, if he’s caught young and trained up proper, and if his mother has spanked him well beforehand, may turn out a decent being. Your husband, now, isn’t so bad, as men go, from all I hear. I s’pose”—Miss Cornelia looked sharply at Anne over her glasses—“you think there’s nobody like him in the world.”