CHAPTER V Mary was radiant as the sunny morning in a little red tam, and her cheeks as red as her hat from the drive across country. She appeared at the kitchen door quite in her accustomed way just as Miss Marilla was lifting the dainty tray to carry her boy’s breakfast up-stairs, and she almost dropped it in her dismay. Mary “I’ve had the grandest time!” breezed Mary gayly. “You don’t know how beautiful the country is, all wonderful bronze and brown with a purple haze, and a frost like silver lace this morning when I started. You’ve simply got to put on your wraps and come with me for a little while. I know a place where the shadows melt slowly, and the frost will not be gone yet. Come quick! I want you to see it before[92] it’s too late. You’re not just eating your breakfast, Auntie Rill! And on a tray, too! Are you sick?” [92] Miss Marilla glanced guiltily down at the tray, too transparent even to evade the question. “No, why—I—he—my neph——” then she stopped in hopeless confusion, remembering her resolve not to tell a lie about the matter, whatever came. Mary Amber stood up and looked at her, her keen young eyes searching and finding the truth. “You don’t mean to tell me that man is here yet? And you waiting on him!” There were both sorrow and scorn in the fine young voice. In the upper hall the sick soldier in a bathrobe was hanging over the banisters in a panic, wishing some kind fairy would arrive and waft him away on a breath. All his perfidy in getting sick on a strange gentlewoman’s hands and[93] lying lazily in bed, letting her wait on him, was shown up in Mary Amber’s voice. It found its echo in his own strong soul. He had known all along that he had no business there, that he ought to have gone out on the road to die rather than betray the sweet hospitality of Miss Marilla by allowing himself to be a selfish, lazy slob—that was what he called himself as he hung over the banisters. [93] “Mary! Why, he has been very sick!” “Sick?” There was a covert sneer in Mary Amber’s incredulous young voice; and then the conversation was suddenly blanketed by the closing of the hall door, and the sick soldier padded disconsolately back to bed, weak and
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