Marilla Cuthbert was a woman with a stern face and sharp mind, and her brother Matthew was quiet as the evening tide but kind in every way a soul could be. Together, the two lived at Green Gables, a snug white farmhouse located in the rolling fields of Avonlea. Theirs was a steady, predictable life: days punctuated by hard work; the steady rhythms of the farm; and the occasional visit from a neighbor.

It was for this reason that the siblings decided—quite practically—to adopt an orphan boy. A boy could help with the heavy chores, Matthew’s years catching up to him more than he cared to admit. And so, it was arranged. Mrs. Spencer, a well-meaning but careless woman, would deliver the boy to Green Gables on her next trip back from the orphanage in Nova Scotia.

But fate, as it often does, had its own plans.

When Matthew Cuthbert drove his buggy to Bright River Station that day, he was surprised, and indeed nearly overwhelmed, to find not a sturdy boy but a slight, freckle-faced girl with eyes as large and luminous as spring violets. She was dressed in an ill-fitting grey dress and clutched a battered carpetbag as though it held every dream she had ever dared dream.

“You must be Mr. Matthew Cuthbert,” said the girl before he could open his mouth. “I’m so so glad to see you. In fact, I was afraid you weren’t coming. What would have become of me if you didn’t? I’ve imagined you as a kind person, and now here you are—just as I hoped!”

Matthew, not knowing how to respond to such a torrent of words, simply nodded. “Well… I suppose we should be going.”

“Yes, let’s!” she cried, leaping into the buggy as though stepping into a chariot bound for paradise. “This is the most exciting moment of my life! Oh, isn’t it a beautiful evening? Look at those clouds over there—they’re like golden cathedrals floating in the sky! Do you think Heaven looks something like that?”

Matthew didn’t know what to say, so he just smiled. There was something quite captivating about the girl amid her chatter: she seemed to fill life’s quiet with wonder and excitement.

Marilla, on the other hand, was not really charmed when she found out about the girl.

“A girl?” she exclaimed out of surprise as if she was mistaken.

“This is a fine kettle of fish, Matthew!”

The girl’s face, so full of brightness, fell into an expression of pure misery. “You don’t want me,” she whispered.

Matthew’s heart ached for her, but it was Marilla who cleared her throat after a pause. “Well, there’s no point in sending you back tonight. You’d better come inside and have some supper.”

To this, the girl’s face lit up again as though she’d just been told she’d won a kingdom. “Oh, thank you! I promise you won’t regret keeping me; I’ll try so hard to make you love me; if you don’t love me right away, I’ll be patient. Love takes time sometimes, doesn’t it?”

Marilla, who considered herself made of stern stuff, turned away before the girl’s large eyes could work their magic.

The girl introduced herself as Anne—“Anne with an e,” she explained. “The e makes it so much more distinguished. Plain Ann is so unromantic, don’t you think?”

From the first morning, Anne seemed determined to make a home for herself at Green Gables. She woke up early, hair tangled and dreams still spilling from her lips, eager to explore the orchard, the brook, and the sprawling fields.

“It is simply the most amazing place I have ever seen, and I just cannot believe I am going to be living here. It looks straight out of a storybook!”

Anne was unlike anyone Marilla had ever known. Her imagination was a force of nature. Funnily enough, she renamed places around the house: Barry’s Pond became The Lake of Shining Waters, the woods were The Haunted Forest, and her bedroom window opened to The White Way of Delight. She had the ability to find beauty in the plainest things: the pattern of the sun on the kitchen floor; the wind singing through the trees; or even the freckles that sprinkled her nose (“though I do wish they were lily-white like Diana Barry’s”).

At first, Marilla dismissed this fanciful optimism as folly. “You’d do well to keep your feet on the ground, Anne,” she said often. But Matthew, quiet though he was, adored Anne’s light. He listened to her dreams as though they were hymns, and it was he who spoke to Marilla when Anne’s return to the orphanage seemed inevitable.

“She’s brought something to Green Gables we didn’t know we needed,” Matthew said softly. “It’s never felt so alive here.”

Marilla, practical though she was, couldn’t deny it.

Anne’s optimism was infectious. And it wasn’t long before it crept into Marilla’s heart like sunlight through a closed window. Though the girl got herself into more scrapes than anyone could count: dyeing her hair green by accident, falling off the roof during a dare, or accidentally serving liniment instead of vanilla in a cake, there was never any malice in her mischief. She took each mistake as a lesson and each setback as a new beginning.

“I can’t help it,” Anne would say. “Every morning feels like a fresh chance to be my very best self.”

Marilla found herself softening and her strict demeanour giving way to something gentler. Surprisingly, she began to look forward to Anne’s stories and chatter. At night, when Anne would gaze out her window, Marilla would sometimes pause in the doorway to listen. “Tomorrow will be even better than today,” Anne would whisper to the stars. “I just know it.”

And the strange thing was—she was often right.

Anne’s optimism transformed not only her life but the lives around her. She made a bosom friend of Diana Barry, whose loyalty would see her through the darkest days. She earned the reluctant respect of her school rival, Gilbert Blythe after he had the audacity to call her “Carrots” (a mistake for which he paid dearly when Anne broke her slate over his head). And she won over Mrs Rachel Lynde, Avonlea’s chief critic and town gossip, simply by being unapologetically herself.

Even when tragedy struck—the death of dear Matthew—Anne’s optimism flickered but never died. Marilla found herself leaning on Anne’s strength rather than the other way around. “I can’t see how we’ll go on without him,” Marilla admitted one night, her voice breaking.

Anne, though her heart ached, lifted her chin with quiet resolve. “We’ll go on because Matthew would want us to,” she said gently. “He believed in us. He believed in me. And as long as I’m alive, I’ll make him proud.”

Marilla reached for Anne’s hand. It was the first time she had done so without reserve. “You’ve brought more to Green Gables than we ever expected, Anne, just like Matthew used to say.”

Anne smiled through her tears. “You’ve given me a home, Marilla. I’ll always believe in the beauty of that.”

Anne’s unshakable optimism turned Green Gables into something extraordinary: a place where love grew alongside the cabbages and carrots, where mistakes were lessons, and where dreams—however whimsical—found room to take root. Though life had given Anne nothing at first, she gave back to it tenfold: hope, light, and the reminder that even in hardship, joy can always be found if you dare to look for it.

For Anne, every day was a promise, and that promise was enough to change everything.