"Montgomery, Lucy Maud - Anne Of The Island" - читать интересную книгу автора (Montgomery Lucy Maud)

"Fred will be here," insinuated Anne slyly.
"When is Mrs. Lynde going to move up?" asked Diana, as if she had not
heard Anne's remark.
"Tomorrow. I'm glad she's coming - but it will be another change.
Marilla and I cleared everything out of the spare room yesterday. Do you
know, I hated to do it? Of course, it was silly - but it did seem as if we
were committing sacrilege. That old spare room has always seemed like a
shrine to me. When I was a child I thought it the most wonderful apartment
in the world. You remember what a consuming desire I had to sleep in a
spare room bed - but not the Green Gables spare room. Oh, no, never there!
It would have been too terrible - I couldn't have slept a wink from awe. I
never WALKED through that room when Marilla sent me in on an errand - no,
indeed, I tiptoed through it and held my breath, as if I were in church,
and felt relieved when I got out of it. The pictures of George Whitefield
and the Duke of Wellington hung there, one on each side of the mirror, and
frowned so sternly at me all the time I was in, especially if I dared peep
in the mirror, which was the only one in the house that didn't twist my
face a little. I always wondered how Marilla dared houseclean that room.
And now it's not only cleaned but stripped bare. George Whitefield and the
Duke have been relegated to the upstairs hall. `So passes the glory of
this world,' " concluded Anne, with a laugh in which there was a little
note of regret. It is never pleasant to have our old shrines desecrated,
even when we have outgrown them.
"I'll be so lonesome when you go," moaned Diana for the hundredth
time. "And to think you go next week!"
"But we're together still," said Anne cheerily. "We mustn't let next
week rob us of this week's joy. I hate the thought of going myself - home
and I are such good friends. Talk of being lonesome! It's I who should
groan. YOU'LL be here with any number of your old friends - AND Fred!
While I shall be alone among strangers, not knowing a soul!"
"EXCEPT Gilbert - AND Charlie Sloane," said Diana, imitating Anne's
italics and slyness.
"Charlie Sloane will be a great comfort, of course," agreed Anne
sarcastically; whereupon both those irresponsible damsels laughed. Diana
knew exactly what Anne thought of Charlie Sloane; but, despite sundry
confidential talks, she did not know just what Anne thought of Gilbert
Blythe. To be sure, Anne herself did not know that.
"The boys may be boarding at the other end of Kingsport, for all I
know," Anne went on. "I am glad I'm going to Redmond, and I am sure I
shall like it after a while. But for the first few weeks I know I won't. I
shan't even have the comfort of looking forward to the weekend visit home,
as I had when I went to Queen's. Christmas will seem like a thousand years
away."
"Everything is changing - or going to change," said Diana sadly. "I
have a feeling that things will never be the same again, Anne."
"We have come to a parting of the ways, I suppose," said Anne
thoughtfully. "We had to come to it. Do you think, Diana, that being
grown-up is really as nice as we used to imagine it would be when we were
children?"
"I don't know - there are SOME nice things about it," answered Diana,