CHAPTER 1 IN THE GARRET OF GREEN GABLES `` Thanks be , I 'm done with geometry , learning or teaching it , '' said Anne Shirley , a trifle vindictively , as she thumped a somewhat battered volume of Euclid into a big chest of books , banged the lid in triumph , and sat down upon it , looking at Diana Wright across the Green Gables garret , with gray eyes that were like a morning sky . The garret was a shadowy , suggestive , delightful place , as all garrets should be . Through the open window , by which Anne sat , blew the sweet , scented , sun-warm air of the August afternoon ; outside , poplar boughs rustled and tossed in the wind ; beyond them were the woods , where Lover 's Lane wound its enchanted path , and the old apple orchard which still bore its rosy harvests munificently . And , over all , was a great mountain range of snowy clouds in the blue southern sky . Through the other window was glimpsed a distant , white-capped , blue sea -- the beautiful St. Lawrence Gulf , on which floats , like a jewel , Abegweit , whose softer , sweeter Indian name has long been forsaken for the more prosaic one of Prince Edward Island . Diana Wright , three years older than when we last saw her , had grown somewhat matronly in the intervening time . But her eyes were as black and brilliant , her cheeks as rosy , and her dimples as enchanting , as in the long-ago days when she and Anne Shirley had vowed eternal friendship in the garden at Orchard Slope . In her arms she held a small , sleeping , black-curled creature , who for two happy years had been known to the world of Avonlea as `` Small Anne Cordelia . '' Avonlea folks knew why Diana had called her Anne , of course , but Avonlea folks were puzzled by the Cordelia . There had never been a Cordelia in the Wright or Barry connections . Mrs. Harmon Andrews said she supposed Diana had found the name in some trashy novel , and wondered that Fred had n't more sense than to allow it . But Diana and Anne smiled at each other . They knew how Small Anne Cordelia had come by her name . `` You always hated geometry , '' said Diana with a retrospective smile . `` I should think you 'd be real glad to be through with teaching , anyhow . '' `` Oh , I 've always liked teaching , apart from geometry . These past three years in Summerside have been very pleasant ones . Mrs. Harmon Andrews told me when I came home that I would n't likely find married life as much better than teaching as I expected . Evidently Mrs. Harmon is of Hamlet 's opinion that it may be better to bear the ills that we have than fly to others that we know not of . '' Anne 's laugh , as blithe and irresistible as of yore , with an added note of sweetness and maturity , rang through the garret .
Marilla in the kitchen below , compounding blue plum preserve , heard it and XXXXX ; then sighed to think how seldom that dear laugh would echo through Green Gables in the years to come .
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