"Never for a moment; we just seemed to tumble in among friends."
"The church people, you mean?"
"Oh no—well, of course, they were friends—very dear friends—but you need outside friends, too. I found three very good ones waiting for me in Glasgow."
"One was Mrs. Burnett!" said Ann.
"Yes. Mrs. Burnett was my first friend. The day we arrived in the avenue—we were next-door neighbours—was the funeral day of her eldest daughter. With most women that would have been an excuse not to come near us for months, but she came almost at once. She said that it made a link between us, and that, in a way, our coming helped a little to fill the blank left by the dear daughter's death. Her kindness and interest were very grateful to me, a stranger in a strange land, or, as Marget put it, 'a coo on an unco loan.' It was a great pleasure to run in for an hour to the Burnetts'; it was such a big, comfortable, perfectly kept house (the servants had been with them for twenty and thirty years, and had grown into Mrs. Burnett's dainty ways), and there was always a welcome awaiting one at any time."
"They had a splendid garden," said Ann, "with a swing and all manner of amusing things; and I think they really liked having children to tea. I remember their Hallow-e'en parties!"
"Mrs. Burnett looked like an abbess," Mrs. Douglas said. "She always wore a soft black dress—cashmere or silk—and a tiny white lace shawl turned back over her white hair. The style of dress suited her perfectly, for she was very tall and graceful, and glided rather than walked. I admired her very much, being so far from dignified myself, and I used to wonder how she kept so perfectly tidy and unruffled when I always looked as if I had been in the heart of a whirlwind."
"Oh, Mother!" laughed Ann, "just look at the difference in the two lives! Mrs. Burnett with her family grown up, a household running on well-oiled wheels, and a serenity partly natural and partly gained through long years' experience; you in the very forefront of the battle, with an incredibly wild and wicked family, a church to run, small means, and not an ounce of serenity anywhere in your little active body."
"Well, but now that I have leisure I'm not any more serene," Mrs. Douglas complained. "But it was comfort unspeakable just to see Mrs. Burnett, to know that she was near. We used to think that she sat and wondered what she would send us next, she loved so to give."
"I never smell a hyacinth," said Ann, "but I think of Mrs. Burnett. She always sent us the very first pot of hyacinths that came out in the greenhouse."