"
Miss Cornelia and Mrs. Rachel did not take a very
violent fancy to each other. "Two suns hold not their
courses in one sphere." But they did not clash at
all, for Mrs. Rachel was in the kitchen helping Anne
and Marilla with the dinner, and it fell to Gilbert to
entertain Captain Jim and Miss Cornelia,--or rather to
be entertained by them, for a dialogue between those
two old friends and antagonists was assuredly never
dull.
"It's many a year since there was a Christmas dinner
here, Mistress Blythe," said Captain Jim. "Miss
Russell always went to her friends in town for
Christmas. But I was here to the first Christmas
dinner that was ever eaten in this house--and the
schoolmaster's bride cooked it. That was sixty years
ago today, Mistress Blythe--and a day very like
this--just enough snow to make the hills white, and the
harbor as blue as June. I was only a lad, and I'd
never been invited out to dinner before, and I was too
shy to eat enough. I've got all over THAT."
"Most men do," said Miss Cornelia, sewing furiously.
Miss Cornelia was not going to sit with idle hands,
even on Christmas.
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