Lucy Montgomery - Anne of Ingleside

"Don't put too much credence in everything Delilah tells you," Anne warned Diana. "She may be prone to exaggerate a little. Remember Jenny Penny ...”

"Why, Mother, Delilah isn't a single bit like Jenny Penny," said Di indignantly. "Not one bit. She is SCRUPULOUSLY truthful. If you only saw her, Mother, you'd know she couldn't tell a lie. They all pick on her at home because she is so DIFFERENT. And she has SUCH an affectionate nature. She has been persecuted from her birth.

Her stepmother HATES her. It just breaks my heart to hear of her sufferings. Why, Mother, she doesn't get enough to eat, truly she doesn't. She never knows what it is not to be hungry. Mother, they send her to bed without any supper lots of times and she cries herself to sleep. Did YOU ever cry because you were hungry, Mother?”

"Often," said Mother.

Diana stared at her mother, all the wind taken out of the sails of her rhetorical question.

"I was often very hungry before I came to Green Gables--at the orphanage ... and before. I've never cared to talk of those days.”

"Well, you ought to be able to understand Delilah, then," said Di, rallying her confused wits. "When she is SO hungry she just sits down and imagines things to eat. Just THINK of her imagining things to eat!”

"You and Nan do enough of that yourselves," said Anne. But Di would not listen.

"Her sufferings are not only physical but SPIRITUAL. Why, she wants to be a missionary, Mother ... to consecrate her life ... and they ALL LAUGH AT HER.”

"Very heartless of them," agreed Anne. But something in her voice made Di suspicious.

"Mother, WHY will you be so sceptical?" she demanded reproachfully.

"For the second time," smiled Mother, "I must remind you of Jenny Penny. You believed in her, too.”

"I was only a CHILD then and it was easy to fool me," said Diana in her stateliest manner. She felt that Mother was not her usual sympathetic and understanding self in regard to Delilah Green.

After that Diana talked only to Susan about her, since Nan merely nodded when Delilah's name was mentioned. "Just jealousy," thought Diana sadly.

Not that Susan was so markedly sympathetic either. But Diana just had to talk to somebody about Delilah and Susan's derision did not hurt like Mother's. You wouldn't expect Susan to understand fully.

But Mother had been a girl ... Mother had loved Aunt Diana ... Mother had such a tender heart. How was it that the account of poor darling Delilah's ill-treatment left her so cold?

"Maybe she's a little jealous, too, because I love Delilah so much," reflected Diana sagely. "They say mothers do get like that.

Kind of POSSESSIVE.”

"It makes my blood boil to hear of the way her stepmother treats Delilah," Di told Susan. "She is a MARTYR, Susan. She never has anything but a little porridge for breakfast and supper ... a very little bit of porridge. And she isn't allowed sugar on the porridge. Susan, I've given up taking sugar on mine because it made me feel GUILTY.”

"Oh, so that's why. Well, sugar has gone up a cent, so maybe it is just as well.”

Diana vowed she wouldn't tell Susan anything more about Delilah, but next evening she was so indignant she couldn't help herself.

"Susan, Delilah's mother chased her last night with a RED-HOT TEAKETTLE. Think of if, Susan. Of course Delilah says she doesn't do that very often ... only when she is GREATLY EXASPERATED.

Mostly she just locks Delilah in a dark garret ... a HAUNTED garret. The ghosts that poor child has seen, Susan! It can't be healthy for her. The last time they shut her in the garret she saw the WEIRDEST little black creature sitting on the spinning-wheel, HUMMING.”

"What kind of a creature," asked Susan gravely. She was beginning to enjoy Delilah's tribulations and Di's italics, and she and Mrs.

Dr. laughed over them in secret.

"I don't know ... it was just a CREATURE. It almost drove her to suicide. I am really afraid she will be driven to it yet. You know, Susan, she had an uncle who committed suicide TWICE.”

"Was not once enough?" asked Susan heartlessly.

Di went off in a huff, but next day she had to come back with another tale of woe.

"Delilah has never had a doll, Susan. She did so hope she would get one in her stocking last Christmas. And what do you think she found instead, Susan? A SWITCH! They whip her almost every day, you know. Think of that poor child being whipped, Susan.”

"I was whipped several times when I was young and I am none the worse of it now," said Susan, who would have done goodness knows what if anyone had ever tried to whip an Ingleside child.

"When I told Delilah about our Christmas trees, she wept, Susan.

She never had a Christmas tree. But she is bound she is going to have one this year. She had found an old umbrella with nothing but the ribs and she is going to set it in a pail and decorate it for a Christmas tree. Isn't that PATHETIC, Susan?”

"Are there not plenty of young spruces handy? The back of the old Hunter place has practically gone spruce of late years," said Susan. "I do wish that girl was called anything but Delilah.

Such a name for a Christian child!”

"Why, it is in the Bible, Susan. Delilah is very proud of her Bible name. Today in school, Susan, I told Delilah we were going to have chicken for dinner tomorrow and she said ... what do you think she said, Susan?”

"I am sure I could never guess," said Susan emphatically. "And you have no business to be talking in school.”

"Oh, we don't. Delilah says we must never break any of the rules.

Her standards are very high. We write each other letters in our scribblers and exchange them. Well, Delilah said, 'Could you bring me a bone, Diana?' It brought tears to my eye. I'm going to take her a bone ... with a lot of meat on it. Delilah NEEDS good food. She has to work like a slave ... a SLAVE, Susan. She has to do all the housework ... well, nearly all anyway. And if it isn't done right she is SAVAGELY SHAKEN ... or made to eat in the kitchen WITH THE SERVANTS.”

"The Greens have only one little French hired boy.”

"Well, she has to eat with him. And he sits in his sockfeet and eats in his shirtsleeves. Delilah says she doesn't mind those things now when she has me to love her. She has no one to love her but me, Susan?”

"Awful!" said Susan, with great gravity of countenance.

"Delilah says if she had a million dollars she'd give it all to me, Susan. Of course I wouldn't take it but it shows how good her heart is.”

"It is as easy to give away a million as a hundred if you have not got either," was as far as Susan would go.

Diana was overjoyed. After all, Mother wasn't jealous ... Mother wasn't possessive ... Mother did understand.

Mother and Father were going up to Avonlea for the week-end and Mother had told her she could ask Delilah Green to spend Saturday and Saturday night at Ingleside.

"I saw Delilah at the Sunday School picnic," Anne told Susan. "She is a pretty, lady-like little thing ... though of course she MUST exaggerate. Perhaps her stepmother IS a little hard on her ... and I've heard her father is rather dour and strict. She probably has some grievances and likes to dramatize them by way of getting sympathy.”

Susan was a bit dubious.

"But at least anyone living in Laura Green's house will be clean,” she reflected. Fine-tooth combs did not enter into this question.

Diana was full of plans for Delilah's entertainment.

"Can we have a roast chicken, Susan ... with lots of stuffing?

And PIE. You don't know how that poor child longs to taste pie.

They never have pies ... her stepmother is too mean.”

Susan was very nice about it. Jem and Nan had gone to Avonlea and Walter was down at the House of Dreams with Kenneth Ford. There was nothing to cast a shadow on Delilah's visit and it certainly seemed to go off very well. Delilah arrived Saturday morning very nicely dressed in pink muslin ... at least the stepmother seemed to do her well in the matter of clothes. And she had, as Susan saw at a glance, irreproachable ears and nails.