“Leah Bloodgood, that will do! Don't read another word. Don't fan me, don't ask me how I feel now. Let me get my breath, and then we will go over and open the parsonage windows. That, I suppose, is the first thing to do. It's something to be thankful for that it's a good-sized parsonage.”
“Be thankful, then—I'm not. I'm not anything but incensed clear through. After I'd taken every precaution that was ever thought of, and some that weren't ever, to keep that man out of mischief! I thought of all the absent-minded things he might do, but I never thought of this, no, I never! And we wanted him to marry Cornelia so much, Marilla! Cornelia would have made him such a beautiful wife!”
“Beautiful!” sighed Marilla, hopelessly. It had been the dear pet plan they had nursed in common with all the parish. Everybody but the minister and Cornelia had shared in it.
“And five children! Marilla Merritt, think of five children romping over our parsonage, knocking all the corners off!”
“I'm thinking,” mourned Marilla, gustily. She felt a dismal suspicion that this was going to daunt her. But her habit of facing things came to the front. “Wednesday's only four days off,” she said, with a fine assumption of briskness. “I don't suppose he said anything about a wedding tour, did he?”
“No. But even if he took one he'd probably forget and stop off here. So we can't count on that. What's done has got to be done in four days. What has got to be done, Marilla?”
“Everything. We must start this minute, Leah Bloodgood! The house must be aired and painted and papered, and window-glass set—there's no end! And all in four days! We can't let our minister bring his wife and five children home to a shabby house. Cornelia Opp must go round and get money for new dining-room chairs, and there ought to be more beds with a family like that. Dishes, too. Cornelia ought to start at once. She's the best solicitor we have.”
“There's another thing,” broke out Mrs. Bloodgood; “the minister must have some new shirts. He ought to have a whole trousseau. He hasn't boarded with me, and I done all his mending, without my knowing what he ought to have, now that he's going to go and get married. We can't let him be shabby, either.”
“Then, of course, there ought to be a lot of cooked food in the house, and supper all ready for them when they come. Oh, I guess we'll find plenty to do! I guess we can't stop to groan much. But, oh, how different we'd all feel if it was Cornelia!”
“Different! I'd give 'em my dining-room chairs and my cellar stairs! I'd make shirts and sit up all night to cook! It's—it's wicked, Marilla, that's what it is.”