ANNE OF GREEN GABLES by Lucy Maud Montgomery (2024)

ANNE OF GREEN GABLES by Lucy Maud Montgomery

1. Mrs. Rachel Lynde is Surprised

Mrs. Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main road dipped down
into a little hollow, fringed with alders and ladies' eardrops and
traversed by a brook that had its source away back in the woods of the old
Cuthbert place; it was reputed to be an intricate, headlong brook in its
earlier course through those woods, with dark secrets of pool and cascade;
but by the time it reached Lynde's Hollow it was a quiet, well-conducted
little stream, for not even a brook could run past Mrs. Rachel Lynde's
door without due regard for decency and decorum; it probably was conscious
that Mrs. Rachel was sitting at her window, keeping a sharp eye on
everything that passed, from brooks and children up, and that if she
noticed anything odd or out of place she would never rest until she had
ferreted out the whys and wherefores thereof.
There are plenty of people in Avonlea and out of it, who can attend
closely to their neighbor's business by dint of neglecting their own; but
Mrs. Rachel Lynde was one of those capable creatures who can manage their
own concerns and those of other folks into the bargain. She was a notable
housewife; her work was always done and well done; she "ran" the Sewing
Circle, helped run the Sunday-school, and was the strongest prop of the
Church Aid Society and Foreign Missions Auxiliary. Yet with all this Mrs.
Rachel found abundant time to sit for hours at her kitchen window,
knitting "cotton warp" quilts-she had knitted sixteen of them, as Avonlea
housekeepers were wont to tell in awed voices-and keeping a sharp eye on
the main road that crossed the hollow and wound up the steep red hill
beyond. Since Avonlea occupied a little triangular peninsula jutting out
into the Gulf of St. Lawrence with water on two sides of it, anybody who
went out of it or into it had to pass over that hill road and so run the
unseen gauntlet of Mrs. Rachel's all-seeing eye.
She was sitting there one afternoon in early June. The sun was coming
in at the window warm and bright; the orchard on the slope below the house
was in a bridal flush of pinkywhite bloom, hummed over by a myriad of
bees. Thomas Lyndea meek little man whom Avonlea people called "Rachel
Lynde's husband"-was sowing his late turnip seed on the hill field beyond
the barn; and Matthew Cuthbert ought to have been sowing his on the big
red brook field away over by Green Gables. Mrs. Rachel know that he ought
because she had heard him tell Peter Morrison the evening before in
William J. Blair's store over at Carmody that he meant to sow his turnip
seed the afternoon. Peter had asked him, of course, for Matthew Cuthbert
had never been known to volunteer information about anything in his whole
life.
And yet here was Matthew Cuthbert, at half-past three on the
afternoon of a busy day, placidly driving over the hollow and up the hill;
moreover, he wore a white collar and his best suit of clothes, which was
plain proof that he was going out of Avonlea; and he had the buggy and
sorrel mare, which betokened that he was going a considerable distance.
Now, where was Matthew Cuthbert going and why was he going there?
Had it been any other man in Avonlea, Mrs. Rachel, deftly putting
this and that together, might have given a pretty good guess as to both
questions. But Matthew so rarely went from home that it must be something
pressing and unusual which was taking him; he was the shyest man alive and
hated to have to go among strangers or to any place where he might have to
talk. Matthew, dressed up with a white collar and driving in a buggy, was
something that didn't happen often. Mrs. Rachel, ponder as she might,
could make nothing of it and her afternoon's enjoyment was spoiled.
"I'll just step over to Green Gables after tea and find out from
Marilla where he's gone and why," the worthy woman finally concluded. "He
doesn't generally go to town this time of year and he NEVER visits; if
he'd run out of turnip seed he wouldn't dress up and take the buggy to go
for more; he wasn't driving fast enough to be going for a doctor. Yet
something must have happened since last night to start him off. I'm clean
puzzled, that's what, and I won't know a minute's peace of mind or
conscience until I know what has taken Matthew Cuthbert out of Avonlea
today."
Accordingly after tea Mrs. Rachel set out; she had not far to go; the
big, rambling, orchard-embowered house where the Cuthberts lived was a
scant quarter of a mile up the road from Lynde's Hollow. To be sure, the
long lane made it a good deal further. Matthew Cuthbert's father, as shy
and silent as his son after him, had got as far away as he possibly could
from his fellow men without actually retreating into the woods when he
founded his homestead. Green Gables was built at the furthest edge of his
cleared land and there it was to this day, barely visible from the main
road along which all the other Avonlea houses were so sociably situated.
Mrs. Rachel Lynde did not call living in such a place LIVING at all.
"It's just STAYING, that's what," she said as she stepped along the
deep-rutted, grassy lane bordered with wild rose bushes. "It's no wonder
Matthew and Marilla are both living away back here by themselves. Trees
aren't much company, though dear knows if they were there'd be enough of
them. I'd ruther look at people. To be sure, they seem contented enough;
but then, I suppose, they're used to it. A body can get used to anything,
even to being hanged, as the Irishman said."
With this Mrs. Rachel stepped out of the lane into the backyard of
Green Gables. Very green and neat and precise was that yard, set about on
one side with great patriarchal willows and the other with prim
Lombardies. Not a stray stick nor stone was to be seen, for Mrs. Rachel
would have seen it if there had been. Privately she was of the opinion
that Marilla Cuthbert swept that yard over as often as she swept her
house. One could have eaten a meal off the ground without overbrimming the
proverbial peck of dirt.
Mrs. Rachel rapped smartly at the kitchen door and stepped in when
bidden to do so. The kitchen at Green Gables was a cheerful apartment-or
would have been cheerful if it had not been so painfully clean as to give
it something of the appearance of an unused parlor. Its windows looked
east and west; through the west one, looking out on the back yard, came a
flood of mellow June sunlight; but the east one, whence you got a glimpse
of the bloom white cherry-trees in the left orchard and nodding, slender
birches down in the hollow by the brook, was greened over by a tangle of
vines. Here sat Marilla Cuthbert, when she sat at all, always slightly
distrustful of sunshine, which seemed to her too dancing and irresponsible
a thing for a world which was meant to be taken seriously; and here she
sat now, knitting, and the table behind her was laid for supper.
Mrs. Rachel, before she had fairly closed the door, had taken a
mental note of everything that was on that table. There were three plates
laid, so that Marilla must be expecting some one home with Matthew to tea;
but the dishes were everyday dishes and there was only crab-apple
preserves and one kind of cake, so that the expected company could not be
any particular company. Yet what of Matthew's white collar and the sorrel
mare? Mrs. Rachel was getting fairly dizzy with this unusual mystery about
quiet, unmysterious Green Gables.
"Good evening, Rachel," Marilla said briskly. "This is a real fine
evening, isn't it" Won't you sit down? How are all your folks?"
Something that for lack of any other name might be called friendship
existed and always had existed between Marilla Cuthbert and Mrs. Rachel,
in spite of-or perhaps because of-their dissimilarity.
Marilla was a tall, thin woman, with angles and without curves; her
dark hair showed some gray streaks and was always twisted up in a hard
little knot behind with two wire hairpins stuck aggressively through it.
She looked like a woman of narrow experience and rigid conscience, which
she was; but there was a saving something about her mouth which, if it had
been ever so slightly developed, might have been considered indicative of
a sense of humor.
"We're all pretty well," said Mrs. Rachel. "I was kind of afraid YOU
weren't, though, when I saw Matthew starting off today. I thought maybe he
was going to the doctor's."
Marilla's lips twitched understandingly. She had expected Mrs. Rachel
up; she had known that the sight of Matthew jaunting off so unaccountably
would be too much for her neighbor's curiosity.
"Oh, no, I'm quite well although I had a bad headache yesterday," she
said. "Matthew went to Bright River. We're getting a little boy from an
orphan asylum in Nova Scotia and he's coming on the train tonight."
If Marilla had said that Matthew had gone to Bright River to meet a
kangaroo from Australia Mrs. Rachel could not have been more astonished.
She was actually stricken dumb for five seconds. It was unsupposable that
Marilla was making fun of her, but Mrs. Rachel was almost forced to
suppose it.
"Are you in earnest, Marilla?" she demanded when voice returned to
her.
"Yes, of course," said Marilla, as if getting boys from orphan
asylums in Nova Scotia were part of the usual spring work on any
well-regulated Avonlea farm instead of being an unheard of innovation.
Mrs. Rachel felt that she had received a severe mental jolt. She
thought in exclamation points. A boy! Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert of all
people adopting a boy! From an orphan asylum! Well, the world was
certainly turning upside down! She would be surprised at nothing after
this! Nothing!
"What on earth put such a notion into your head?" she demanded
disapprovingly.
This had been done without here advice being asked, and must perforce
be disapproved.
"Well, we've been thinking about it for some time-all winter in fact,"
returned Marilla. "Mrs. Alexander Spencer was up here one day before
Christmas and she said she was going to get a little girl from the asylum
over in Hopeton in the spring. Her cousin lives there and Mrs. Spencer has
visited here and knows all about it. So Matthew and I have talked it over
off and on ever since. We thought we'd get a boy. Matthew is getting up in
years, you know-he's sixtyand he isn't so spry as he once was. His heart
troubles him a good deal. And you know how desperate hard it's got to be
to get hired help. There's never anybody to be had but those stupid,
half-grown little French boys; and as soon as you do get one broke into
your ways and taught something he's up and off to the lobster canneries or
the States. At first Matthew suggested getting a Home boy. But I said `no'
flat to that. `They may be all right-I'm not saying they're not-but no
London street Arabs for me,' I said. `Give me a native born at least.
There'll be a risk, no matter who we get. But I'll feel easier in my mind
and sleep sounder at nights if we get a born Canadian.' So in the end we
decided to ask Mrs. Spencer to pick us out one when she went over to get
her little girl. We heard last week she was going, so we sent her word by
Richard Spencer's folks at Carmody to bring us a smart, likely boy of
about ten or eleven. We decided that would be the best age-old enough to
be of some use in doing chores right off and young enough to be trained up
proper. We mean to give him a good home and schooling. We had a telegram
from Mrs. Alexander Spencer today-the mail-man brought it from the
stationsaying they were coming on the five-thirty train tonight. So
Matthew went to Bright River to meet him. Mrs. Spencer will drop him off
there. Of course she goes on to White Sands station herself"
Mrs. Rachel prided herself on always speaking her mind; she proceeded
to speak it now, having adjusted her mental attitude to this amazing piece
of news.
"Well, Marilla, I'll just tell you plain that I think you're doing a
mighty foolish thing-a risky thing, that's what. You don't know what
you're getting. You're bringing a strange child into your house and home
and you don't know a single thing about him nor what his disposition is
like nor what sort of parents he had nor how he's likely to turn out. Why,
it was only last week I read in the paper how a man and his wife up west
of the Island took a boy out of an orphan asylum and he set fire to the
house at night-set it ON PURPOSE, Marilla-and nearly burnt them to a crisp
in their beds. And I know another case where an adopted boy used to such
the eggs-they couldn't break him of it. If you had asked my advice in the
matter-which you didn't do, Marilla-I'd have said for mercy's sake not to
think of such a thing, that's what."
This Job's comforting seemed neither to offend nor alarm Marilla. She
knitted steadily on.
"I don't deny there's something in what you say, Rachel. I've had
some qualms myself. But Matthew was terrible set on it. I could see that,
so I gave in. It's so seldom Matthew sets his mind on anything that when
he does I always feel it's my duty to give in. And as for the risk,
there's risks in pretty near everything a body does in this world. There's
risks in people's having children of their own if it comes to that-they
don't always turn out well. And then Nova Scotia is right close to the
Island. It isn't as if we were getting him from England or the States. He
can't be much different from ourselves."
"Well, I hope it will turn out all right," said Mrs. Rachel in a tone
that plainly indicated her painful doubts. "Only don't say I didn't warn
you if he burns Green Gables down or puts strychnine in the well-I heard
of a case over in New Brunswick where an orphan asylum child did that and
the whole family died in fearful agonies. Only, it was a girl in that
instance."
"Well, we're not getting a girl," said Marilla, as if poisoning wells
were a purely feminine accomplishment and not to be dreaded in the case of
a boy. "I'd never dream of taking a girl to bring up. I wonder at Mrs.
Alexander Spencer for doing it. But there, SHE wouldn't shrink from
adopting a whole orphan asylum if she took it into her head."
Mrs. Rachel would have liked to stay until Matthew came home with his
imported orphan. But reflecting that it would be a good two hours at least
before his arrival she concluded to go up the road to Robert Bell's and
tell them the news. It would certainly make a sensation second to none,
and Mrs. Rachel dearly loved to make a sensation. So she took herself
away, somewhat to Marilla's relief, for the latter felt her doubts and
fears reviving under the influence of Mrs. Rachel's pessimism.
"Well, of all things that ever were or will be!" ejacul*ted Mrs.
Rachel when she was safely out in the lane. "It does really seem as if I
must be dreaming. Well, I'm sorry for that poor young one and no mistake.
Matthew and Marilla don't know anything about children and they'll expect
him to be wiser and steadier that his own grandfather, if so be's he ever
had a grandfather, which is doubtful. It seems uncanny to think of a child
at Green Gables somehow; there's never been one there, for Matthew and
Marilla were grown up when the new house was built-if they ever WERE
children, which is hard to believe when one looks at them. I wouldn't be
in that orphan's shoes for anything. My, but I pity him, that's what."
So said Mrs. Rachel to the wild rose bushes out of the fulness of her
heart; but if she could have seen the child who was waiting patiently at
the Bright River station at that very moment her pity would have been
still deeper and more profound.

2. Matthew Cuthbert is surprised

Matthew Cuthbert and the sorrel mare jogged comfortably over the
eight miles to Bright River. It was a pretty road, running along between
snug farmsteads, with now and again a bit of balsamy fir wood to drive
through or a hollow where wild plums hung out their filmy bloom. The air
was sweet with the breath of many apple orchards and the meadows sloped
away in the distance to horizon mists of pearl and purple; while

"The little birds sang as if it were
The one day of summer in all the year."

Matthew enjoyed the drive after his own fashion, except during the
moments when he met women and had to nod to themfor in Prince Edward
island you are supposed to nod to all and sundry you meet on the road
whether you know them or not.
Matthew dreaded all women except Marilla and Mrs. Rachel; he had an
uncomfortable feeling that the mysterious creatures were secretly laughing
at him. He may have been quite right in thinking so, for he was an
odd-looking personage, with an ungainly figure and long iron-gray hair
that touched his stooping shoulders, and a full, soft brown beard which he
had worn ever since he was twenty. In fact, he had looked at twenty very
much as he looked at sixty, lacking a little grayness.
When he reached Bright River there was no sign of any train; he
thought he was too early, so he tied his horse in the yard of the small
Bright River hotel and went over to the station house. The long platform
was almost deserted; the only living creature in sight being a girl who
was sitting on a pile of shingles at the extreme end. Matthew, barely
noting that it WAS a girl, sidled past her as quickly as possible without
looking at her. Had he looked he could hardly have failed to notice the
tense rigidity and expectation of her attitude and expression. She was
sitting there waiting for something or somebody and, since sitting and
waiting was the only thing to do just then, she sat and waited with all
her might and main.
Matthew encountered the stationmaster locking up the ticket office
preparatory to going home for supper, and asked him if the five-thirty
train would soon be along.
"The five-thirty train has been in and gone half an hour ago,"
answered that brisk official. "But there was a passenger dropped off for
you-a little girl. She's sitting out there on the shingles. I asked her to
go into the ladies' waiting room, but she informed me gravely that she
preferred to stay outside. `There was more scope for imagination,' she
said. She's a case, I should say."
"I'm not expecting a girl," said Matthew blankly. "It's a boy I've
come for. He should be here. Mrs. Alexander Spencer was to bring him over
from Nova Scotia for me."
The stationmaster whistled.
"Guess there's some mistake," he said. "Mrs. Spencer came off the
train with that girl and gave her into my charge. Said you and your sister
were adopting her from an orphan asylum and that you would be along for
her presently. That's all I know about it-and I haven't got any more
orphans concealed hereabouts."
"I don't understand," said Matthew helplessly, wishing that Marilla
was at hand to cope with the situation.
"Well, you'd better question the girl," said the stationmaster
carelessly. "I dare say she'll be able to explainshe's got a tongue of her
own, that's certain. Maybe they were out of boys of the brand you wanted."
He walked jauntily away, being hungry, and the unfortunate Matthew
was left to do that which was harder for him than bearding a lion in its
den-walk up to a girl-a strange girl-an orphan girl-and demand of her why
she wasn't a boy. Matthew groaned in spirit as he turned about and
shuffled gently down the platform towards her.
She had been watching him ever since he had passed her and she had
her eyes on him now. Matthew was not looking at her and would not have
seen what she was really like if he had been, but an ordinary observer
would have seen this:
A child of about eleven, garbed in a very short, very tight, very
ugly dress of yellowish gray wincey. She wore a faded brown sailor hat and
beneath the hat, extending down her back, were two braids of very thick,
decidedly red hair. Her face was small, white and thin, also much
freckled; her mouth was large and so were her eyes, that looked green in
some lights and moods and gray in others.
So far, the ordinary observer; an extraordinary observer might have
seen that the chin was very pointed and pronounced; that the big eyes were
full of spirit and vivacity; that the mouth was sweet-lipped and
expressive; that the forehead was broad and full; in short, our discerning
extraordinary observer might have concluded that no commonplace soul
inhabited the body of this stray womanchild of whom shy Matthew Cuthbert
was so ludicrously afraid.
Matthew, however, was spared the ordeal of speaking first, for as
soon as she concluded that he was coming to her she stood up, grasping
with one thin brown hand the handle of a shabby, old-fashioned carpet-bag;
the other she held out to him.
"I suppose you are Mr. Matthew Cuthbert of Green Gables?" she said in
a peculiarly clear, sweet voice. "I'm very glad to see you. I was
beginning to be afraid you weren't coming for me and I was imagining all
the things that might have happened to prevent you. I had made up my mind
that if you didn't come for me to-night I'd go down the track to that big
wild cherry-tree at the bend, and climb up into it to stay all night. I
wouldn't be a bit afraid, and it would be lovely to sleep in a wild
cherry-tree all white with bloom in the moonshine, don't you think? You
could imagine you were dwelling in marble halls, couldn't you? And I was
quite sure you would come for me in the morning, if you didn't to-night."
Matthew had taken the scrawny little hand awkwardly in his; then and
there he decided what to do. He could not tell this child with the glowing
eyes that there had been a mistake; he would take her home and let Marilla
do that. She couldn't be left at Bright River anyhow, no matter what
mistake had been made, so all questions and explanations might as well be
deferred until he was safely back at Green Gables.
"I'm sorry I was late," he said shyly. "Come along. The horse is over
in the yard. Give me your bag."
"Oh, I can carry it," the child responded cheerfully. "It isn't
heavy. I've got all my worldly goods in it, but it isn't heavy. And if it
isn't carried in just a certain way the handle pulls out-so I'd better
keep it because I know the exact knack of it. It's an extremely old
carpet-bag. Oh, I'm very glad you've come, even if it would have been nice
to sleep in a wild cherry-tree. We've got to drive a long piece, haven't
we? Mrs. Spencer said it was eight miles. I'm glad because I love driving.
Oh, it seems so wonderful that I'm going to live with you and belong to
you. I've never belonged to anybody-not really. But the asylum was the
worst. I've only been in it four months, but that was enough. I don't
suppose you ever were an orphan in an asylum, so you can't possibly
understand what it is like. It's worse than anything you could imagine.
Mrs. Spencer said it was wicked of me to talk like that, but I didn't mean
to be wicked. It's so easy to be wicked without knowing it, isn't it? They
were good, you know-the asylum people. But there is so little scope for
the imagination in an asylum-only just in the other orphans. It was pretty
interesting to imagine things about them-to imagine that perhaps the girl
who sat next to you was really the daughter of a belted earl, who had been
stolen away from her parents in her infancy by a cruel nurse who died
before she could confess. I used to lie awake at nights and imagine things
like that, because I didn't have time in the day. I guess that's why I'm
so thin-I am dreadful thin, ain't I? There isn't a pick on my bones. I do
love to imagine I'm nice and plump, with dimples in my elbows."
With this Matthew's companion stopped talking, partly because she was
out of breath and partly because they had reached the buggy. Not another
word did she say until they had left the village and were driving down a
steep little hill, the road part of which had been cut so deeply into the
soft soil, that the banks, fringed with blooming wild cherry-trees and
slim white birches, were several feet above their heads.
The child put out her hand and broke off a branch of wild plum that
brushed against the side of the buggy.
"Isn't that beautiful? What did that tree, leaning out from the bank,
all white and lacy, make you think of?" she asked.
"Well now, I dunno," said Matthew.
"Why, a bride, of course-a bride all in white with a lovely misty
veil. I've never seen one, but I can imagine what she would look like. I
don't ever expect to be a bride myself. I'm so homely nobody will ever
want to marry meunless it might be a foreign missionary. I suppose a
foreign missionary mightn't be very particular. But I do hope that some
day I shall have a white dress. That is my highest ideal of earthly bliss.
I just love pretty clothes. And I've never had a pretty dress in my life
that I can remember-but of course it's all the more to look forward to,
isn't it? And then I can imagine that I'm dressed gorgeously. This morning
when I left the asylum I felt so ashamed because I had to wear this horrid
old wincey dress. All the orphans had to wear them, you know. A merchant
in Hopeton last winter donated three hundred yards of wincey to the
asylum. Some people said it was because he couldn't sell it, but I'd
rather believe that it was out of the kindness of his heart, wouldn't you?
When we got on the train I felt as if everybody must be looking at me and
pitying me. But I just went to work and imagined that I had on the most
beautiful pale blue silk dress-because when you ARE imagining you might as
well imagine something worth while-and a big hat all flowers and nodding
plumes, and a gold watch, and kid gloves and boots. I felt cheered up
right away and I enjoyed my trip to the Island with all my might. I wasn't
a bit sick coming over in the boat. Neither was Mrs. Spencer although she
generally is. She said she hadn't time to get sick, watching to see that I
didn't fall overboard. She said she never saw the beat of me for prowling
about. But if it kept her from being seasick it's a mercy I did prowl,
isn't it? And I wanted to see everything that was to be seen on that boat,
because I didn't know whether I'd ever have another opportunity. Oh, there
are a lot more cherry-trees all in bloom? This Island is the bloomiest
place. I just love it already, and I'm so glad I'm going to live here.
I've always heard that Prince Edward Island was the prettiest place in the
world, and I used to imagine I was living here, but I never really
expected I would. It's delightful when your imaginations come true, isn't
it? But those red roads are so funny. When we got into the train at
Charlottetown and the red roads began to flash past I asked Mrs. Spencer
what made them red and she said she didn't know and for pity's sake not to
ask her any more questions. She said I must have asked her a thousand
already. I suppose I had, too, but how you going to find out about things
if you don't ask questions? And what DOES make the roads red?"
"Well now, I dunno," said Matthew.
"Well, that is one of the things to find out sometime. Isn't it
splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just
makes me feel glad to be aliveit's such an interesting world. It wouldn't
be half so interesting if we know all about everything, would it? There'd
be no scope for imagination then, would there? But am I talking too much?
People are always telling me I do. Would you rather I didn't talk? If you
say so I'll stop. I can STOP when I make up my mind to it, although it's
difficult."
Matthew, much to his own surprise, was enjoying himself. Like most
quiet folks he liked talkative people when they were willing to do the
talking themselves and did not expect him to keep up his end of it. But he
had never expected to enjoy the society of a little girl. Women were bad
enough in all conscience, but little girls were worse. He detested the way
they had of sidling past him timidly, with sideways glances, as if they
expected him to gobble them up at a mouthful if they ventured to say a
word. This was the Avonlea type of well-bred little girl. But this
freckled witch was very different, and although he found it rather
difficult for his slower intelligence to keep up with her brisk mental
processes he thought that he "kind of liked her chatter." So he said as
shyly as usual:
"Oh, you can talk as much as you like. I don't mind."
"Oh, I'm so glad. I know you and I are going to get along together
fine. It's such a relief to talk when one wants to and not be told that
children should be seen and not heard. I've had that said to me a million
times if I have once. And people laugh at me because I use big words. But
if you have big ideas you have to use big words to express them, haven't
you?"
"Well now, that seems reasonable," said Matthew.
"Mrs. Spencer said that my tongue must be hung in the middle. But it
isn't-it's firmly fastened at one end. Mrs. Spencer said your place was
named Green Gables. I asked her all about it. And she said there were
trees all around it. I was gladder than ever. I just love trees. And there
weren't any at all about the asylum, only a few poor weeny-teeny things
out in front with little whitewashed cagey things about them. They just
looked like orphans themselves, those trees did. It used to make me want
to cry to look at them. I used to say to them, `Oh, you POOR little
things! If you were out in a great big woods with other trees all around
you and little mosses and Junebells growing over your roots and a brook
not far away and birds singing in you branches, you could grow, couldn't
you? But you can't where you are. I know just exactly how you feel, little
trees.' I felt sorry to leave them behind this morning. You do get so
attached to things like that, don't you? Is there a brook anywhere near
Green Gables? I forgot to ask Mrs. Spencer that."
"Well now, yes, there's one right below the house."
"Fancy. It's always been one of my dreams to live near a brook. I
never expected I would, though. Dreams don't often come true, do they?
Wouldn't it be nice if they did? But just now I fell pretty nearly
perfectly happy. I can't feel exactly perfectly happy because-well, what
color would you call this?"
She twitched one of her long glossy braids over her thin shoulder and
held it up before Matthew's eyes. Matthew was not used to deciding on the
tints of ladies' tresses, but in this case there couldn't be much doubt.
"It's red, ain't it?" he said.
The girl let the braid drop back with a sigh that seemed to come from
her very toes and to exhale forth all the sorrows of the ages.
"Yes, it's red," she said resignedly. "Now you see why I can't be
perfectly happy. Nobody could who has red hair. I don't mind the other
things so much-the freckles and the green eyes and my skinniness. I can
imagine them away. I can imagine that I have a beautiful rose-leaf
complexion and lovely starry violet eyes. But I cannot imagine that red
hair away. I do my best. I think to myself, `Now my hair is a glorious
black, black as the raven's wing.' But all the time I know it is just
plain red and it breaks my heart. It will be my lifelong sorrow, but it
wasn't red hair. Her hair was pure gold rippling back from her alabaster
brow. What is an alabaster brow? I never could find out. Can you tell me?"
"Well now, I'm afraid I can't," said Matthew, who was getting a
little dizzy. He felt as he had once felt in his rash youth when another
boy had enticed him on the merry-goround at a picnic.
"Well, whatever it was it must have been something nice because she
was divinely beautiful. Have you ever imagined what it must feel like to
be divinely beautiful?"
"Well now, no, I haven't," confessed Matthew ingenuously.
"I have, often. Which would you rather be if you had the
choice-divinely beautiful or dazzlingly clever or angelically good?"
"Well now, I-I don't know exactly."
"Neither do I. I can never decide. But it doesn't make much real
difference for it isn't likely I'll ever be either. It's certain I'll
never be angelically good. Mrs. Spencer says-oh, Mr. Cuthbert! Oh, Mr.
Cuthbert!! Oh, Mr. Cuthbert!!!"
That was not what Mrs. Spencer had said; neither had the child
tumbled out of the buggy nor had Matthew done anything astonishing. They
had simply rounded a curve in the road and found themselves in the
"Avenue."
The "Avenue," so called by the Newbridge people, was a stretch of
road four or five hundred yards long, completely arched over with huge,
wide-spreading apple-trees, planted years ago by an eccentric old farmer.
Overhead was one long canopy of snowy fragrant bloom. Below the boughs the
air was full of a purple twilight and far ahead a glimpse of painted
sunset sky shone like a great rose window at the end of a cathedral aisle.
Its beauty seemed to strike the child dumb. She leaned back in the
buggy, her thin hands clasped before her, her face lifted rapturously to
the white splendor above. Even when they had passed out and were driving
down the long slope to Newbridge she never moved or spoke. Still with rapt
face she gazed afar into the sunset west, with eyes that say visions
trooping splendidly across that glowing background. Through Newbridge, a
bustling little village where dogs barked at them and small boys hooted
and curious faces peered from the windows, they drove, still in silence.
When three more miles had dropped away behind them the child had not
spoken. She could keep silence, it was evident, as energetically as she
could talk.
"I guess you're feeling pretty tired and hungry," Matthew ventured to
say at last, accounting for her long visitation of dumbness with the only
reason he could think of. "But we haven't very far to go now-only another
mile."
She came out of her reverie with a deep sigh and looked at him with
the dreamy gaze of a soul that had been wondering afar, star-led.
"Oh, Mr. Cuthbert," she whispered, "that place we came through-that
white place-what was it?"
"Well now, you must mean the Avenue," said Matthew after a few
moments' profound reflection. "It is a kind of pretty place."
"Pretty? Oh, PRETTY doesn't seem the right word to use. Nor
beautiful, either. They don't go far enough. Oh, it was
wonderful-wonderful. It's the first thing I ever saw that couldn't be
improved upon by imagination. It just satisfies me here"-she put one hand
on her breast-"it made a queer funny ache and yet it was a pleasant ache.
Did you ever have an ache like that, Mr. Cuthbert?"
"Well now, I just can't recollect that I ever had."
"I have it lots of time-whenever I see anything royally beautiful.
But they shouldn't call that lovely place the Avenue. There is no meaning
in a name like that. They should call it-let me see-the White Way of
Delight. Isn't that a nice imaginative name? When I don't like the name of
a place or a person I always imagine a new one and always think of them
so. There was a girl at the asylum whose name was Hepzibah Jenkins, but I
always imagined her as Rosalia DeVere. Other people may call that place
the Avenue, but I shall always call it the White Way of Delight. Have we
really only another mile to go before we get home? I'm glad and I'm sorry.
I'm sorry because this drive has been so pleasant and I'm always sorry
when pleasant things end. Something still pleasanter may come after, but
you can never be sure. And it's so often the case that it isn't
pleasanter. That has been my experience anyhow. But I'm glad to think of
getting home. You see, I've never had a real home since I can remember. It
gives me that pleasant ache again just to think of coming to a really
truly home. Oh, isn't that pretty!"
They had driven over the crest of a hill. Below them was a pond,
looking almost like a river so long and winding was it. A bridge spanned
it midway and from there to its lower end, where an amber-hued belt of
sand-hills shut it in from the dark blue gulf beyond, the water was a
glory of many shifting hues-the most spiritual shadings of crocus and rose
and ethereal green, with other elusive tintings for which no name has ever
been found. Above the bridge the pond ran up into fringing groves of fir
and maple and lay all darkly translucent in their wavering shadows. Here
and there a wild plum leaned out from the back like a white-clad girl
tip-toeing to her own reflection. From the marsh at the head of the pond
came the clear, mournfully-sweet chorus of the frogs. There was a little
gray house peering around a white apple orchard on a slope beyond and,
although it was not yet quite dark, a light was shining from one of its
windows.
"That's Barry's pond," said Matthew.
"Oh, I don't like that name, either. I shall call it-let me see-the
Lake of Shining Waters. Yes, that is the right name for it. I know because
of the thrill. When I hit on a name that suits exactly it gives me a
thrill. Do things ever give you a thrill?"
Matthew ruminated.
"Well now, yes. It always kind of gives me a thrill to see them ugly
white grubs that spade up in the cucumber beds. I hate the look of them."
"Oh, I don't think that can be exactly the same kind of a thrill. Do
you think it can? There doesn't seem to be much connection between grubs
and lakes of shining waters, does there? But why do other people call it
Barry's pond?"
"I reckon because Mr. Barry lives up there in that house. Orchard
Slope's the name of his place. If it wasn't for that big bush behind it
you could see Green Gables from here. But we have to go over the bridge
and round by the road, so it's near half a mile further."
"Has Mr. Barry any little girls? Well, not so very little
either-about my size."
"He's got one about eleven. Her name is Diana."
"Oh!" with a long indrawing of breath. "What a perfectly lovely name!"
"Well now, I dunno. There's something dreadful heathenish about it,
seems to me. I'd ruther Jane or Mary or some sensible name like that. But
when Diana was born there was a schoolmaster boarding there and they gave
him the naming of her and he called her Diana."
"I wish there had been a schoolmaster like that around when I was
born, then. Oh, here we are at the bridge. I'm going to shut my eyes
tight. I'm always afraid going over bridges. I can't help imagining that
perhaps just as we get to the middle, they'll crumple up like a jack-knife
and nip us. So I shut my eyes. But I always have to open them for all when
I think we're getting near the middle. Because, you see, if the bridge DID
crumple up I'd want to SEE it crumple. What a jolly rumble it makes! I
always like the rumble part of it. Isn't it splendid there are so many
things to like in this world? There we're over. Now I'll look back. Good
night, dear Lake of Shining Waters. I always say good night to the things
I love, just as I would to people I think they like it. That water looks
as if it was smiling at me."
When they had driven up the further hill and around a corner Matthew
said:
"We're pretty near home now. That's Green Gables over-"
"Oh, don't tell me," she interrupted breathlessly, catching at his
partially raised arm and shutting her eyes that she might not see his
gesture. "Let me guess. I'm sure I'll guess right."
She opened her eyes and looked about her. They were on the crest of a
hill. The sun had set some time since, but the landscape was still clear
in the mellow afterlight. To the west a dark church spire rose up against
a marigold sky. Below was a little valley and beyond a long, gently-rising
slope with snug farmsteads scattered along it. From one to another the
child's eyes darted, eager and wistful. At last they lingered on one away
to the left, far back from the road, dimly white with blossoming trees in
the twilight of the surrounding woods. Over it, in the stainless southwest
sky, a great crystal-white star was shining like a lamp of guidance and
promise.
"That's it, isn't it?" she said, pointing.
Matthew slapped the reins on the sorrel's back delightedly.
"Well now, you've guessed it! But I reckon Mrs. Spencer described it
so's you could tell."
"No, she didn't-really she didn't. All she said might just as well
have been about most of those other places. I hadn't any real idea what it
looked like. But just as soon as I saw it I felt it was home. Oh, it seems
as if I must be in a dream. Do you know, my arm must be black and blue
from the elbow up, for I've pinched myself so many times today. Every
little while a horrible sickening feeling would come over me and I'd be so
afraid it was all a dream. Then I'd pinch myself to see if it was
real-until suddenly I remembered that even supposing it was only a dream
I'd better go on dreaming as long as I could; so I stopped pinching. But
it IS real and we're nearly home."
With a sigh of rapture she relapsed into silence. Matthew stirred
uneasily. He felt glad that it would be Marilla and not he who would have
to tell this waif of the world that the home she longed for was not to be
hers after all. They drove over Lynde's Hollow, where it was already quite
dark, but not so dark that Mrs. Rachel could not see them from her window
vantage, and up the hill and into the long lane of Green Gables. By the
time they arrived at the house Matthew was shrinking from the approaching
revelation with an energy he did not understand. It was not of Marilla or
himself he was thinking of the trouble this mistake was probably going to
make for them, but of the child's disappointment. When he thought of that
rapt light being quenched in her eyes he had an uncomfortable feeling that
he was going to assist at murdering something-much the same feeling that
came over him when he had to kill a lamb or calf or any other innocent
little creature.
The yard was quite dark as they turned into it and the poplar leaves
were rustling silkily all round it.
"Listen to the trees talking in their sleep," she whispered, as he
lifted her to the ground. "What nice dreams they must have!"
Then, holding tightly to the carpet-bag which contained "all her
worldly goods," she followed him into the house.

3. Marilla Cuthbert is Surprised

Marilla came briskly forward as Matthew opened the door. But when her
eyes fell of the odd little figure in the stiff, ugly dress, with the long
braids of red hair and the eager, luminous eyes, she stopped short in
amazement.
"Matthew Cuthbert, who's that?" she ejacul*ted. "Where is the boy?"
"There wasn't any boy," said Matthew wretchedly. "There was only HER."
He nodded at the child, remembering that he had never even asked her
name.
"No boy! But there MUST have been a boy," insisted Marilla. "We sent
word to Mrs. Spencer to bring a boy."
"Well, she didn't. She brought HER. I asked the stationmaster. And I
had to bring her home. She couldn't be left there, no matter where the
mistake had come in."
"Well, this is a pretty piece of business!" ejacul*ted Marilla.
During this dialogue the child had remained silent, her eyes roving
from one to the other, all the animation fading out of her face. Suddenly
she seemed to grasp the full meaning of what had been said. Dropping her
precious carpet-bag she sprang forward a step and clasped her hands.
"You don't want me!" she cried. "You don't want me because I'm not a
boy! I might have expected it. Nobody ever did want me. I might have known
it was all too beautiful to last. I might have known nobody really did
want me. Oh, what shall I do? I'm going to burst into tears!"
Burst into tears she did. Sitting down on a chair by the table,
flinging her arms out upon it, and burying her face in them, she proceeded
to cry stormily. Marilla and Matthew looked at each other deprecatingly
across the stove. Neither of them knew what to say or do. Finally Marilla
stepped lamely into the breach.
"Well, well, there's no need to cry so about it."
"Yes, there IS need!" The child raised her head quickly, revealing a
tear-stained face and trembling lips. "YOU would cry, too, if you were an
orphan and had come to a place you thought was going to be home and found
that they didn't want you because you weren't a boy. Oh, this is the most
TRAGICAL thing that ever happened to me!"
Something like a reluctant smile, rather rusty from long disuse,
mellowed Marilla's grim expression.
"Well, don't cry any more. We're not going to turn you outof-doors
to-night. You'll have to stay here until we investigate this affair.
What's your name?"
The child hesitated for a moment.
"Will you please call me Cordelia?" she said eagerly.
"CALL you Cordelia? Is that your name?"
"No-o-o, it's not exactly my name, but I would love to be called
Cordelia. It's such a perfectly elegant name."
"I don't know what on earth you mean. If Cordelia isn't your name,
what is?"
"Anne Shirley," reluctantly faltered forth the owner of that name,
"but, oh, please do call me Cordelia. It can't matter much to you what you
call me if I'm only going to be here a little while, can it? And Anne is
such an unromantic name."
"Unromantic fiddlesticks!" said the unsympathetic Marilla. "Anne is a
real good plain sensible name. You've no need to be ashamed of it."
"Oh, I'm not ashamed of it," explained Anne, "only I like Cordelia
better. I've always imagined that my name was Cordelia-at least, I always
have of late years. When I was young I used to imagine it was Geraldine,
but I like Cordelia better now. But if you call me Anne please call me
Anne spelled with an E."
"What difference does it make how it's spelled?" asked Marilla with
another rusty smile as she picked up the teapot.
"Oh, it makes SUCH a difference. It LOOKS so much nicer. When you
hear a name pronounced can't you always see it in your mind, just as if it
was printed out? I can; and A-n-n looks dreadful, but A-n-n-e looks so
much more distinguished. If you'll only call me Anne spelled with an E I
shall try to reconcile myself to not being called Cordelia."
"Very well, then, Anne spelled with an E, can you tell us how this
mistake came to be made? We sent word to Mrs. Spencer to bring us a boy.
Were there no boys at the asylum?"
"Oh, yes, there was an abundance of them. But Mrs. Spencer said
DISTINCTLY that you wanted a girl about eleven years old. And the matron
said she thought I would do. You don't know how delighted I was. I
couldn't sleep all last night for joy. Oh," she added reproachfully,
turning to Matthew, "why didn't you tell me at the station that you didn't
want me and leave me there? If I hadn't seen the White Way of Delight and
the Lake of Shining Waters if wouldn't be so hard."
"What on earth does she mean?" demanded Marilla, staring at Matthew.
"She-she's just referring to some conversation we had on the road,"
said Matthew hastily. "I'm going out to put the mare in, Marilla. Have tea
ready when I come back."
"Did Mrs. Spencer bring anybody over besides you?" continued Marilla
when Matthew had gone out.
"She brought Lily Jones for herself. Lily is only five years old and
she is very beautiful and had nut-brown hair. If I was very beautiful and
had nut-brown hair would you keep me?"
"No. We want a boy to help Matthew on the farm. A girl would be of no
use to us. Take off your hat. I'll lay it and your bag on the hall table."
Anne took off her hat meekly. Matthew came back presently and they
sat down to supper. But Anne could not eat. In vain she nibbled at the
bread and butter and pecked at the crab-apple preserve out of the little
scalloped glass dish by her plate. She did not really make any headway at
all.
"You're not eating anything," said Marilla sharply, eying her as if
it were a serious shortcoming. Anne sighed.
"I can't. I'm in the depths of despair. Can you eat when you are in
the depths of despair?"
"I've never been in the depths of despair, so I can't say," responded
Marilla.
"Weren't you? Well, did you ever try to IMAGINE you were in the
depths of despair?"
"No, I didn't."
"Then I don't think you can understand what it's like. It's very
uncomfortable feeling indeed. When you try to eat a lump comes right up in
your throat and you can't swallow anything, not even if it was a chocolate
caramel. I had one chocolate caramel once two years ago and it was simply
delicious. I've often dreamed since then that I had a lot of chocolate
caramels, but I always wake up just when I'm going to eat them. I do hope
you won't be offended because I can't eat. Everything is extremely nice,
but still I cannot eat."
"I guess she's tired," said Matthew, who hadn't spoken since his
return from the barn. "Best put her to bed, Marilla."
Marilla had been wondering where Anne should be put to bed. She had
prepared a couch in the kitchen chamber for the desired and expected boy.
But, although it was neat and clean, it did not seem quite the thing to
put a girl there somehow. But the spare room was out of the question for
such a stray waif, so there remained only the east gable room. Marilla
lighted a candle and told Anne to follow her, which Anne spiritlessly did,
taking her hat and carpet-bag from the hall table as she passed. The hall
was fearsomely clean; the little gable chamber in which she presently
found herself seemed still cleaner.
Marilla set the candle on a three-legged, three-cornered table and
turned down the bedclothes.
"I suppose you have a nightgown?" she questioned.
Anne nodded.
"Yes, I have two. The matron of the asylum made them for me. They're
fearfully skimpy. There is never enough to go around in an asylum, so
things are always skimpy-at least in a poor asylum like ours. I hate
skimpy night-dresses. But one can dream just as well in them as in lovely
trailing ones, with frills around the neck, that's one consolation."
"Well, undress as quick as you can and go to bed. I'll come back in a
few minutes for the candle. I daren't trust you to put it out yourself.
You'd likely set the place on fire."
When Marilla had gone Anne looked around her wistfully. The
whitewashed walls were so painfully bare and staring that she thought they
must ache over their own bareness. The floor was bare, too, except for a
round braided mat in the middle such as Anne had never seen before. In one
corner was the bed, a high, old-fashioned one, with four dark, lowturned
posts. In the other corner was the aforesaid threecorner table adorned
with a fat, red velvet pincushion hard enough to turn the point of the
most adventurous pin. Above it hung a little six by eight mirror. Midway
between table and bed was the window, with an icy white muslin frill over
it, and opposite it was the wash-stand. The whole apartment was of a
rigidity not to be described in words, but which sent a shiver to the very
marrow of Anne's bones. With a sob she hastily discarded her garments, put
on the skimpy nightgown and sprang into bed where she burrowed face
downward into the pillow and pulled the clothes over her head. When
Marilla came up for the light various skimpy articles of raiment scattered
most untidily over the floor and a certain tempestuous appearance of the
bed were the only indications of any presence save her own.
She deliberately picked up Anne's clothes, placed them neatly on a
prim yellow chair, and then, taking up the candle, went over to the bed.
"Good night," she said, a little awkwardly, but not unkindly.
Anne's white face and big eyes appeared over the bedclothes with a
startling suddenness.
"How can you call it a GOOD night when you know it must be the very
worst night I've ever had?" she said reproachfully.
Then she dived down into invisibility again.
Marilla went slowly down to the kitchen and proceeded to wash the
supper dishes. Matthew was smoking-a sure sign of perturbation of mind. He
seldom smoked, for Marilla set her face against it as a filthy habit; but
at certain times and seasons he felt driven to it and them Marilla winked
at the practice, realizing that a mere man must have some vent for his
emotions.
"Well, this is a pretty kettle of fish," she said wrathfully. "This
is what comes of sending word instead of going ourselves. Robert Spencer's
folks have twisted that message somehow. One of us will have to drive over
and see Mrs. Spencer tomorrow, that's certain. This girl will have to be
sent back to the asylum."
"Yes, I suppose so," said Matthew reluctantly.
"You SUPPOSE so! Don't you know it?"
"Well now, she's a real nice little thing, Marilla. It's kind of a
pity to send her back when she's so set on staying here."
"Matthew Cuthbert, you don't mean to say you think we ought to keep
her!"
Marilla's astonishment could not have been greater if Matthew had
expressed a predilection for standing on his head.
"Well, now, no, I suppose not-not exactly," stammered Matthew,
uncomfortably driven into a corner for his precise meaning. "I suppose-we
could hardly be expected to keep her."
"I should say not. What good would she be to us?"
"We might be some good to her," said Matthew suddenly and
unexpectedly.
"Matthew Cuthbert, I believe that child has bewitched you! I can see
as plain as plain that you want to keep her."
"Well now, she's a real interesting little thing," persisted Matthew.
"You should have heard her talk coming from the station."
"Oh, she can talk fast enough. I saw that at once. It's nothing in
her favour, either. I don't like children who have so much to say. I don't
want an orphan girl and if I did she isn't the style I'd pick out. There's
something I don't understand about her. No, she's got to be despatched
straight-way back to where she came from."
"I could hire a French boy to help me," said Matthew, "and she'd be
company for you."
"I'm not suffering for company," said Marilla shortly. "And I'm not
going to keep her."
"Well now, it's just as you say, of course, Marilla," said Matthew
rising and putting his pipe away. "I'm going to bed."
To bed went Matthew. And to bed, when she had put her dishes away,
went Marilla, frowning most resolutely. And up-stairs, in the east gable,
a lonely, heart-hungry, friendless child cried herself to sleep.

4. Morning at Green Gables

It was broad daylight when Anne awoke and sat up in bed, staring
confusedly at the window through which a flood of cheery sunshine was
pouring and outside of which something white and feathery waved across
glimpses of blue sky.
For a moment she could not remember where she was. First came a
delightful thrill, as something very pleasant; then a horrible
remembrance. This was Green Gables and they didn't want her because she
wasn't a boy!
But it was morning and, yes, it was a cherry-tree in full bloom
outside of her window. With a bound she was out of bed and across the
floor. She pushed up the sash-it went up stiffly and creakily, as if it
hadn't been opened for a long time, which was the case; and it stuck so
tight that nothing was needed to hold it up.
Anne dropped on her knees and gazed out into the June morning, her
eyes glistening with delight. Oh, wasn't it beautiful? Wasn't it a lovely
place? Suppose she wasn't really going to stay here! She would imagine she
was. There was scope for imagination here.
A huge cherry-tree grew outside, so close that its boughs tapped
against the house, and it was so thick-set with blossoms that hardly a
leaf was to be seen. On both sides of the house was a big orchard, one of
apple-trees and one of cherry-trees, also showered over with blossoms; and
their grass was all sprinkled with dandelions. In the garden below were
lilac-trees purple with flowers, and their dizzily sweet fragrance drifted
up to the window on the morning wind.
Below the garden a green field lush with clover sloped down to the
hollow where the brook ran and where scores of white birches grew,
upspringing airily out of an undergrowth suggestive of delightful
possibilities in ferns and mosses and woodsy things generally. Beyond it
was a hill, green and feathery with spruce and fir; there was a gap in it
where the gray gable end of the little house she had seen from the other
side of the Lake of Shining Waters was visible.
Off to the left were the big barns and beyond them, away down over
green, low-sloping fields, was a sparkling blue glimpse of sea.
Anne's beauty-loving eyes lingered on it all, taking everything
greedily in; she had looked on so many unlovely places in her life, poor
child; but this was as lovely as anything she had ever dreamed.
She knelt there, lost to everything but the loveliness around her,
until she was startled by a hand on her shoulder. Marilla had come in
unheard by the small dreamer.
"It's time you were dressed," she said curtly.
Marilla really did not know how to talk to the child, and her
uncomfortable ignorance made her crisp and curt when she did not mean to
be.
Anne stood up and drew a long breath.
"Oh, isn't it wonderful?" she said, waving her hand comprehensively
at the good world outside.
"It's a big tree," said Marilla, "and it blooms great, but the fruit
don't amount to much never-small and wormy."
"Oh, I don't mean just the tree; of course it's lovely-yes, it's
RADIANTLY lovely-it blooms as if it meant it-but I mean everything, the
garden and the orchard and the brook and the woods, the whole big dear
world. Don't you feel as if you just loved the world on a morning like
this? And I can hear the brook laughing all the way up here. Have you ever
noticed what cheerful things brooks are? They're always laughing. Even in
winter-time I've heard them under the ice. I'm so glad there's a brook
near Green Gables. Perhaps you think it doesn't make any difference to me
when you're not going to keep me, but it does. I shall always like to
remember that there is a brook at Green Gables even if I never see it
again. If there wasn't a brook I'd be HAUNTED by the uncomfortable feeling
that there ought to be one. I'm not in the depths of despair this morning.
I never can be in the morning. Isn't it a splendid thing that there are
mornings? But I feel very sad. I've just been imagining that it was really
me you wanted after all and that I was to stay here for ever and ever. It
was a great comfort while it lasted. But the worst of imagining things is
that the time comes when you have to stop and that hurts."
"You'd better get dressed and come down-stairs and never mind your
imaginings," said Marilla as soon as she could get a word in edgewise.
"Breakfast is waiting. Wash your face and comb your hair. Leave the window
up and turn your bedclothes back over the foot of the bed. Be as smart as
you can."
Anne could evidently be smart so some purpose for she was down-stairs
in ten minutes' time, with her clothes neatly on, her hair brushed and
braided, her face washed, and a comfortable consciousness pervading her
soul that she had fulfilled all Marilla's requirements. As a matter of
fact, however, she had forgotten to turn back the bedclothes.
"I'm pretty hungry this morning," she announced as she slipped into
the chair Marilla placed for her. "The world doesn't seem such a howling
wilderness a sit did last night. I'm so glad it's a sunshiny morning. But
I like rainy mornings real well, too. All sorts of mornings are
interesting, don't you think? You don't know what's going to happen
through the day, and there's so much scope for imagination. But I'm glad
it's not rainy today because it's easier to be cheerful and bear up under
affliction on a sunshiny day. I feel that I have a good deal to bear up
under. It's all very well to read about sorrows and imagine yourself
living through them heroically, but it's not so nice when you really come
to have them, is it?"
"For pity's sake hold your tongue," said Marilla. "You talk entirely
too much for a little girl."
Thereupon Anne held her tongue so obediently and thoroughly that her
continued silence made Marilla rather nervous, as if in the presence of
something not exactly natural. Matthew also held his tongue,-but this was
natural,-so that the meal was a very silent one.
As it progressed Anne became more and more abstracted, eating
mechanically, with her big eyes fixed unswervingly and unseeingly on the
sky outside the window. This made Marilla more nervous than ever; she had
an uncomfortable feeling that while this odd child's body might be there
at the table her spirit was far away in some remote airy cloudland, borne
aloft on the wings of imagination. Who would want such a child about the
place?
Yet Matthew wished to keep her, of all unaccountable things! Marilla
felt that he wanted it just as much this morning as he had the night
before, and that he would go on wanting it. That was Matthew's way-take a
whim into his head and cling to it with the most amazing silent
persistency-a persistency ten times more potent and effectual in its very
silence than if he had talked it out.
When the meal was ended Anne came out of her reverie and offered to
wash the dishes.
"Can you wash dishes right?" asked Marilla distrustfully.
"Pretty well. I'm better at looking after children, though. I've had
so much experience at that. It's such a pity you haven't any here for me
to look after."
"I don't feel as if I wanted any more children to look after than
I've got at present. YOU'RE problem enough in all conscience. What's to be
done with you I don't know. Matthew is a most ridiculous man."
"I think he's lovely," said Anne reproachfully. "He is so very
sympathetic. He didn't mind how much I talked-he seemed to like it. I felt
that he was a kindred spirit as soon as ever I saw him."
"You're both queer enough, if that's what you mean by kindred
spirits," said Marilla with a sniff. "Yes, you may wash the dishes. Take
plenty of hot water, and be sure you dry them well. I've got enough to
attend to this morning for I'll have to drive over to White Sands in the
afternoon and see Mrs. Spencer. You'll come with me and we'll settle
what's to be done with you. After you've finished the dishes go up-stairs
and make your bed."
Anne washed the dishes deftly enough, as Marilla who kept a sharp eye
on the process, discerned. Later on she made her bed less successfully,
for she had never learned the art of wrestling with a feather tick. But is
was done somehow and smoothed down; and then Marilla, to get rid of her,
told her she might go out-of-doors and amuse herself until dinner time.
Anne flew to the door, face alight, eyes glowing. On the very
threshold she stopped short, wheeled about, came back and sat down by the
table, light and glow as effectually blotted out as if some one had
clapped an extinguisher on her.
"What's the matter now?" demanded Marilla.
"I don't dare go out," said Anne, in the tome of a martyr
relinquishing all earthly joys. "If I can't stay here there is no use in
my loving Green Gables. And if I go out there and get acquainted with all
those trees and flowers and the orchard and the brook I'll not be able to
help loving it. It's hard enough now, so I won't make it any harder. I
want to go out so much-everything seems to be calling to me, `Anne, Anne,
come out to us. Anne, Anne, we want a playmate'-but it's better not. There
is no use in loving things if you have to be torn from them, is there? And
it's so hard to keep from loving things, isn't it? That was why I was so
glad when I thought I was going to live here. I thought I'd have so many
things to love and nothing to hinder me. But that brief dream is over. I
am resigned to my fate now, so I don't think I'll go out for fear I'll get
unresigned again. What is the name of that geranium on the window-sill,
please?"
"That's the apple-scented geranium."
"Oh, I don't mean that sort of a name. I mean just a name you gave it
yourself. Didn't you give it a name? May I give it one then? May I call
it-let me see-Bonny would do-may I call it Bonny while I'm here? Oh, do
let me!"
"Goodness, I don't care. But where on earth is the sense of naming a
geranium?"
"Oh, I like things to have handles even if they are only geraniums.
It makes them seem more like people. How do you know but that it hurts a
geranium's feelings just to be called a geranium and nothing else? You
wouldn't like to be called nothing but a woman all the time. Yes, I shall
call it Bonny. I named that cherry-tree outside my bedroom window this
morning. I called it Snow Queen because it was so white. Of course, it
won't always be in blossom, but one can imagine that it is, can't one?"
"I never in all my life say or heard anything to equal her," muttered
Marilla, beating a retreat down to the cellar after potatoes. "She is kind
of interesting as Matthew says. I can feel already that I'm wondering what
on earth she'll say next. She'll be casting a spell over me, too. She's
cast it over Matthew. That look he gave me when he went out said
everything he said or hinted last night over again. I wish he was like
other men and would talk things out. A body could answer back then and
argue him into reason. But what's to be done with a man who just LOOKS?"
Anne had relapsed into reverie, with her chin in her hands and her
eyes on the sky, when Marilla returned from her cellar pilgrimage. There
Marilla left her until the early dinner was on the table.
"I suppose I can have the mare and buggy this afternoon, Matthew?"
said Marilla.
Matthew nodded and looked wistfully at Anne. Marilla intercepted the
look and said grimly:
"I'm going to drive over to White Sands and settle this thing. I'll
take Anne with me and Mrs. Spencer will probably make arrangements to send
her back to Nova Scotia at once. I'll set your tea out for you and I'll be
home in time to milk the cows."
Still Matthew said nothing and Marilla had a sense of having wasted
words and breath. There is nothing more aggravating than a man who won't
talk back-unless it is a woman who won't.
Matthew hitched the sorrel into the buggy in due time and Marilla and
Anne set off. Matthew opened the yard gate for them and as they drove
slowly through, he said, to nobody in particular as it seemed.
"Little Jerry Buote from the Creek was here this morning, and I told
him I guessed I'd hire him for the summer."
Marilla made no reply, but she hit the unlucky sorrel such a vicious
clip with the whip that the fat mare, unused to such treatment, whizzed
indignantly down the lane at an alarming pace. Marilla looked back once as
the buggy bounced along and saw that aggravating Matthew leaning over the
gate, looking wistfully after them.

5. Anne's History

"Do you know," said Anne confidentially, "I've made up my mind to
enjoy this drive. It's been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy
things if you make up your mind firmly that you will. Of course, you must
make it up FIRMLY. I am not going to think about going back to the asylum
while we're having our drive. I'm just going to think about the drive. Oh,
look, there's one little early wild rose out! Isn't it lovely? Don't you
think it must be glad to be a rose? Wouldn't it be nice if roses could
talk? I'm sure they could tell us such lovely things. And isn't pink the
most bewitching color in the world? I love it, but I can't wear it.
Redheaded people can't wear pink, not even in imagination. Did you ever
know of anybody whose hair was red when she was young, but got to be
another color when she grew up?"
"No, I don't know as I ever did," said Marilla mercilessly, "and I
shouldn't think it likely to happen in your case either."
Anne sighed.
"Well, that is another hope gone. `My life is a perfect graveyard of
buried hopes.' That's a sentence I read in a book once, and I say it over
to comfort myself whenever I'm disappointed in anything."
"I don't see where the comforting comes in myself," said Marilla.
"Why, because it sounds so nice and romantic, just as if I were a
heroine in a book, you know. I am so fond of romantic things, and a
graveyard full of buried hopes is about as romantic a thing as one can
imagine isn't it? I'm rather glad I have one. Are we going across the Lake
of Shining Waters today?"
"We're not going over Barry's pond, if that's what you mean by your
Lake of Shining Waters. We're going by the shore road."
"Shore road sounds nice," said Anne dreamily. "Is it as nice as it
sounds? Just when you said `shore road' I saw it in a picture in my mind,
as quick as that! And White Sands is a pretty name, too; but I don't like
it as well as Avonlea. Avonlea is a lovely name. It just sounds like
music. How far is it to White Sands?"
"It's five miles; and as you're evidently bent on talking you might
as well talk to some purpose by telling me what you know about yourself."
"Oh, what I KNOW about myself isn't really worth telling." said Anne
eagerly. "If you'll only let me tell you what I IMAGINE about myself
you'll think it ever so much more interesting."
"No, I don't want any of your imaginings. Just you stick to bald
facts. Begin at the beginning. where were you born and how old are you?"
"I was eleven last March," said Anne, resigning herself to bald facts
with a little sigh. "And I was born in Bolingbroke, Nova Scotia. My
father's name was Walter Shirley, and he was a teacher in the Bolingbroke
High School. My mother's name was Bertha Shirley. Aren't Walter and Bertha
lovely names? I'm so glad my parents had nice names. It would be a real
disgrace to have a father named-well, say Jedediah, wouldn't it?"
"I guess it doesn't matter what a person's name is as long as he
behaves himself," said Marilla, feeling herself called upon to inculcate a
good and useful moral.
"Well, I don't know." Anne looked thoughtful. "I read in a book once
that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but I've never been
able to believe it. I don't believe a rose WOULD be as nice if it was
called a thistle or a skunk cabbage. I suppose my father could have been a
good man even if he had been called Jedediah; but I'm sure it would have
been a cross. Well, my mother was a teacher in the High school, too, but
when she married father she gave up teaching, of course. A husband was
enough responsibility. Mrs. Thomas said that they were a pair of babies
and as poor as church mice. They went to live in a weeny-teeny little
yellow house in Bolingbroke. I've never seen that house, but I've imagined
it thousands of times. I think it must have had honeysuckle over the
parlor window and lilacs in the front yard and lilies of the valley just
inside the gate. Yes, and muslin curtains in all the windows. Muslin
curtains give a house such an air. I was born in that house. Mrs. Thomas
said I was the homeliest baby she ever saw, I was so scrawny and tiny and
nothing but eyes, but that mother thought I was perfectly beautiful. I
should think a mother would be a better judge than a poor woman who came
in to scrub, wouldn't you? I'm glad she was satisfied with me anyhow, I
would feel so sad if I thought I was a disappointment to her-because she
didn't live very long after that, you see. She died of fever when I was
just three months old. I do wish she'd lived long enough for me to
remember calling her mother. I think it would be so sweet to say `mother,'
don't you? And father died four days afterwards from fever too. That left
me an orphan and folks were at their wits end, so Mrs. Thomas said, what
to do with me. You see, nobody wanted me even then. It seems to be my
fate. Father and mother had both come from places far away and it was well
known they hadn't any relatives living. Finally Mrs. Thomas said she'd
take me, though she was poor and had a drunken husband. She brought me up
by hand. Do you know if there is anything in being brought up by hand that
ought to make people who are brought up that way better than other people?
Because whenever I was naughty Mrs. Thomas would ask me how I could be
such a bad girl when she had brought me up by handreproachful-like.
"Mr. and Mrs. Thomas moved away from Bolingbroke to Marysville, and I
lived with them until I was eight years old. I helped look after the
Thomas children-there were four of them younger than me-and I can tell you
they took a lot of looking after. Then Mr. Thomas was killed falling under
a train and his mother offered to take Mrs. Thomas and the children, but
she didn't want me. Mrs. Thomas was at HER wits' end, so she said, what to
do with me. Then Mrs. Hammond from up the river came down and said she'd
take me, seeing I was handy with children, and I went up the river to live
with her in a little clearing among the stumps. It was a very lonesome
place. I'm sure I could never have lived there if I hadn't had an
imagination. Mr. Hammond worked a little sawmill up there, and Mrs.
Hammond had eight children. She had twins three times. I like babies in
moderation, but twins three times in succession is TOO MUCH. I told Mrs.
Hammond so firmly, when the last pair came. I used to get so dreadfully
tired carrying them about.
"I lived up river with Mrs. Hammond over two years, and then Mr.
Hammond died and Mrs. Hammond broke up housekeeping. She divided her
children among her relatives and went to the States. I had to go to the
asylum at Hopeton, because nobody would take me. They didn't want me at
the asylum, either; they said they were overcrowded as it was. But they
had to take me and I was there four months until Mrs. Spencer came."
Anne finished up with another sigh, of relief this time. Evidently
she did not like talking about her experiences in a world that had not
wanted her.
"Did you ever go to school?" demanded Marilla, turning the sorrel
mare down the shore road.
"Not a great deal. I went a little the last year I stayed with Mrs.
Thomas. When I went up river we were so far from a school that I couldn't
walk it in winter and there was a vacation in summer, so I could only go
in the spring and fall. But of course I went while I was at the asylum. I
can read pretty well and I know ever so many pieces of poetry off by
heart-`The Battle of Hohenlinden" and `Edinburgh after Flodden,' and
`Bingen of the Rhine,' and lost of the `Lady of the Lake' and most of `The
Seasons' by James Thompson. Don't you just love poetry that gives you a
crinkly feeling up and down your back? There is a piece in the Fifth
Reader-`The Downfall of Poland'-that is just full of thrills. Of course, I
wasn't in the Fifth Reader-I was only in the Fourth-but the big girls used
to lend me theirs to read."
"Were those women-Mrs. Thomas and Mrs. Hammond-good to you?" asked
Marilla, looking at Anne out of the corner of her eye.
"O-o-o-h," faltered Anne. Her sensitive little face suddenly flushed
scarlet and embarrassment sat on her brow. "Oh, they MEANT to be-I know
they meant to be just as good and kind as possible. And when people mean
to be good to you, you don't mind very much when they're not quite-always.
They had a good deal to worry them, you know. It's very trying to have a
drunken husband, you see; and it must be very trying to have twins three
times in succession, don't you think? But I feel sure they meant to be
good to me."
Marilla asked no more questions. Anne gave herself up to a silent
rapture over the shore road and Marilla guided the sorrel abstractedly
while she pondered deeply. Pity was suddenly stirring in her heart for the
child. What a starved, unloved life she had had-a life of drudgery and
poverty and neglect; for Marilla was shrewd enough to read between the
lines of Anne's history and divine the truth. No wonder she had been so
delighted at the prospect of a real home. It was a pity she had to be sent
back. What if she, Marilla, should indulge Matthew's unaccountable whim
and let her stay? He was set on it; and the child seemed a nice, teachable
little thing.
"She's got too much to say," thought Marilla, "but she might be
trained out of that. And there's nothing rude or slangy in what she does
say. She's ladylike. It's likely her people were nice folks."
The shore road was "woodsy and wild and lonesome." On the right hand,
scrub firs, their spirits quite unbroken by long years of tussle with the
gulf winds, grew thickly. On the left were the steep red sandstone cliffs,
so near the track in places that a mare of less steadiness that the sorrel
might have tried the nerves of the people behind her. Down at the base of
the cliffs were heaps of surf-worn rocks or little sandy coves inlaid with
pebbles as with ocean jewels; beyond lay the sea, shimmering and blue, and
over it soared the gulls, their pinions flashing silvery in the sunlight.
"Isn't the sea wonderful?" said Anne, rousing from a long, wide-eyed
silence. "Once, when I lived in Marysville, Mr. Thomas hired an express
wagon and took us all to spend the day at the shore ten miles away. I
enjoyed every moment of that day, even if I had to look after the children
all the time. I lived it over in happy dreams for years. But this shore is
nicer than the Marysville shore. Aren't those gulls splendid? Would you
like to be a gull? I think I would-that is, if I couldn't be a human girl.
Don't you think it would be nice to wake up at sunrise and swoop down over
the water and away out over that lovely blue all day; and then at night to
fly back to one's nest? Oh, I can just imagine myself doing it. What big
house is that just ahead, please?"
"That's the White Sands Hotel. Mr. Kirke runs it, but the season
hasn't begun yet. There are heaps of Americans come there for the summer.
They think this shore is just about right."
"I was afraid it might be Mrs. Spencer's place," said Anne
mournfully. "I don't want to get there. Somehow, it will seem like the end
of everything."

6. Marilla Makes Up Her Mind

Get there they did, however, in due season. Mrs. Spencer lived in a
big yellow house at White Sands Cove, and she came to the door with
surprise and welcome mingled on her benevolent face.
"Dear, dear," she exclaimed, "you're the last folks I was looking for
today, but I'm real glad to see you. You'll put your horse in? And how are
you, Anne?"
"I'm as well as can be expected, thank you," said Anne smilelessly. A
blight seemed to have descended on her.
"I suppose we'll stay a little while to rest the mare," said Marilla,
"but I promised Matthew I'd be home early. The fact is, Mrs. Spencer,
there's been a queer mistake somewhere, and I've come over to see where it
is. We send word, Matthew and I, for you to bring us a boy from the
asylum. We told your brother Robert to tell you we wanted a boy ten or
eleven years old."
"Marilla Cuthbert, you don't say so!" said Mrs. Spencer in distress.
"Why, Robert sent word down by his daughter Nancy and she said you wanted
a girl-didn't she Flora Jane?" appealing to her daughter who had come out
to the steps.
"She certainly did, Miss Cuthbert," corroborated Flora Jane
earnestly.
I'm dreadful sorry," said Mrs. Spencer. "It's too bad; but it
certainly wasn't my fault, you see, Miss Cuthbert. I did the best I could
and I thought I was following your instructions. Nancy is a terrible
flighty thing. I've often had to scold her well for her heedlessness."
"It was our own fault," said Marilla resignedly. "We should have come
to you ourselves and not left an important message to be passed along by
word of mouth in that fashion. Anyhow, the mistake has been made and the
only thing to do is to set it right. Can we send the child back to the
asylum? I suppose they'll take her back, won't they?"
"I suppose so," said Mrs. Spencer thoughtfully, "but I don't think it
will be necessary to send her back. Mrs. Peter Blewett was up here
yesterday, and she was saying to me how much she wished she'd sent by me
for a little girl to help her. Mrs. Peter has a large family, you know,
and she finds it hard to get help. Anne will be the very girl for you. I
call it positively providential."
Marilla did not look as if she thought Providence had much to do with
the matter. Here was an unexpectedly good chance to get this unwelcome
orphan off her hands, and she did not even feel grateful for it.
She know Mrs. Peter Blewett only by sight as a small, shrewish-faced
woman without an ounce of superfluous flesh on her bones. But she had
heard of her. "A terrible worker and driver," Mrs. Peter was said to be;
and discharged servant girls told fearsome tales of her temper and
stinginess, and her family of pert, quarrelsome children. Marilla felt a
qualm of conscience at the thoughtof handing Anne over to her tender
mercies.
"Well, I'll go in and we'll talk the matter over," she said.
"And if there isn't Mrs. Peter coming up the lane this blessed
minute!" exclaimed Mrs. Spencer, bustling her guests through the hall into
the parlor, where a deadly chill struck on them as if the air had been
strained so long through dark green, closely drawn blinds that it had lost
every particle of warmth it had ever possessed. "That is real lucky, for
we can settle the matter right away. Take the armchair, Miss Cuthbert.
Anne, you sit here on the ottoman and don't wriggle. Let me take your
hats. Flora Jane, go out and put the kettle on. Good afternoon, Mrs.
Blewett. We were just saying how fortunate it was you happened along. Let
me introduce you two ladies. Mrs. Blewett, Miss Cuthbert. Please excuse me
for just a moment. I forgot to tell Flora Jane to take the buns out of the
oven."
Mrs. Spencer whisked away, after pulling up the blinds. Anne sitting
mutely on the ottoman, with her hands clasped tightly in her lap, stared
at Mrs Blewett as one fascinated. Was she to be given into the keeping of
this sharp-faced, sharp-eyed woman? She felt a lump coming up in her
throat and her eyes smarted painfully. She was beginning to be afraid she
couldn't keep the tears back when Mrs. Spencer returned, flushed and
beaming, quite capable of taking any and every difficulty, physical,
mental or spiritual, into consideration and settling it out of hand.
"It seems there's been a mistake about this little girl, Mrs.
Blewett," she said. "I was under the impression that Mr. and Miss Cuthbert
wanted a little girl to adopt. I was certainly told so. But it seems it
was a boy they wanted. So if you're still of the same mind you were
yesterday, I think she'll be just the thing for you."
Mrs. Blewett darted her eyes over Anne from head to foot.
"How old are you and what's your name?" she demanded.
"Anne Shirley," faltered the shrinking child, not daring to make any
stipulations regarding the spelling thereof, "and I'm eleven years old."
"Humph! You don't look as if there was much to you. But you're wiry.
I don't know but the wiry ones are the best after all. Well, if I take you
you'll have to be a good girl, you know-good and smart and respectful.
I'll expect you to earn your keep, and no mistake about that. Yes, I
suppose I might as well take her off your hands, Miss Cuthbert. The baby's
awful fractious, and I'm clean worn out attending to him. If you like I
can take her right home now."
Marilla looked at Anne and softened at sight of the child's pale face
with its look of mute misery-the misery of a helpless little creature who
finds itself once more caught in the trap from which it had escaped.
Marilla felt an uncomfortable conviction that, if she denied the appeal of
that look, it would haunt her to her dying day. Moreover, she did not
fancy Mrs. Blewett. To hand a sensitive, "highstrung" child over to such a
woman! No, she could not take the responsibility of doing that!
"Well, I don't know," she said slowly. "I didn't say that Matthew and
I had absolutely decided that we wouldn't keep her. In fact I may say that
Matthew is disposed to keep her. I just came over to find out how the
mistake had occurred. I think I'd better take her home again and talk it
over with Matthew. I feel that I oughtn't to decide on anything without
consulting him. If we make up our mind not to keep her we'll bring or send
her over to you tomorrow night. If we don't you may know that she is going
to stay with us. Will that suit you, Mrs. Blewett?"
"I suppose it'll have to," said Mrs. Blewett ungraciously.
During Marilla's speech a sunrise had been dawning on Anne's face.
First the look of despair faded out; then came a faint flush of hope; here
eyes grew deep and bright as morning stars. The child was quite
transfigured; and, a moment later, when Mrs. Spencer and Mrs. Blewett went
out in quest of a recipe the latter had come to borrow she sprang up and
flew across the room to Marilla.
"Oh, Miss Cuthbert, did you really say that perhaps you would let me
stay at Green Gables?" she said, in a breathless whisper, as if speaking
aloud might shatter the glorious possibility. "Did you really say it? Or
did I only imagine that you did?"
"I think you'd better learn to control that imagination of yours,
Anne, if you can't distinguish between what is real and what isn't," said
Marilla crossly. "Yes, you did hear me say just that and no more. It isn't
decided yet and perhaps we ill conclude to let Mrs. Blewett take you after
all. She certainly needs you much more than I do."
"I'd rather go back to the asylum than go to live with her," said
Anne passionately. "She looks exactly like a-like a gimlet."
Marilla smothered a smile under the conviction that Anne must be
reproved for such a speech.
"A little girl like you should be ashamed of talking so about a lady
and a stranger," she said severely. "Go back and sit down quietly and hold
your tongue and behave as a good girl should."
"I'll try to do and be anything you want me, if you'll only keep me,"
said Anne, returning meekly to her ottoman.
When they arrived back at Green Gables that evening Matthew met them
in the lane. Marilla from afar had noted him prowling along it and guessed
his motive. She was prepared for the relief she read in his face when he
saw that she had at least brought back Anne back with her. But she said
nothing, to him, relative to the affair, until they were both out in the
yard behind the barn milking the cows. Then she briefly told him Anne's
history and the result of the interview with Mrs. Spencer.
"I wouldn't give a dog I liked to that Blewett woman," said Matthew
with unusual vim."
"I don't fancy her style myself," admitted Marilla, "but it's that or
keeping her ourselves, Matthew. And since you seem to want her, I suppose
I'm willing-or have to be. I've been thinking over the idea until I've got
kind of used to it. It seems a sort of duty. I've never brought up a
child, especially a girl, and I dare say I'll make a terrible mess of it.
But I'll do my best. So far as I'm concerned, Matthew, she may stay."
Matthew's shy face was a glow of delight.
"Well now, I reckoned you'd come to see it in that light, Marilla,"
he said. "She's such an interesting little thing."
"It'd be more to the point if you could say she was a useful little
thing," retorted Marilla, "but I'll make it my business to see she's
trained to be that. And mind, Matthew, you're not to go interfering with
my methods. Perhaps an old maid doesn't know much about bringing up a
child, but I guess she knows more than an old bachelor. So you just leave
me to manage her. When I fail it'll be time enough to put your oar in."
"There, there, Marilla, you can have your own way," said Matthew
reassuringly. "Only be as good and kind to her as you can without spoiling
her. I kind of think she's one of the sort you can do anything with if you
only get her to love you."
Marilla sniffed, to express her contempt for Matthew's opinions
concerning anything feminine, and walked off to the dairy with the pails.
"I won't tell her tonight that she can stay," she reflected, as she
strained the milk into the creamers. "She'd be so excited that she
wouldn't sleep a wink. Marilla Cuthbert, you're fairly in for it. Did you
ever suppose you'd see the day when you'd be adopting an orphan girl? It's
surprising enough; but not so surprising as that Matthew should be at the
bottom of it, him that always seemed to have such a mortal dread of little
girls. Anyhow, we've decided on the experiment and goodness only knows
what will come of it."

7. Anne Says Her Prayers

When Marilla took Anne up to bed that night she said stiffly:
"Now, Anne, I noticed last night that you threw your clothes all
about the floor when you took them off. That is a very untidy habit, and I
can't allow it at all. As soon as you take off any article of clothing
fold it neatly and place it on the chair. I haven't any use at all for
little girls who aren't neat."
"I was so harrowed up in my mind last night that I didn't think about
my clothes at all," said Anne. "I'll fold them nicely tonight. They always
made us do that at the asylum. Half the time, though, I'd forget, I'd be
in such a hurry to get into bed nice and quiet and imagine things."
"You'll have to remember a little better if you stay here,"
admonished Marilla. "There, that looks something like. Say your prayers
now and get into bed."
"I never say any prayers," announced Anne.
Marilla looked horrified astonishment.
"Why, Anne, what do you mean? Were you never taught to say your
prayers? God always wants little girls to say their prayers. Don't you
know who God is, Anne?"
"`God is a spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable, in His being,
wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth,'" responded Anne
promptly and glibly.
Marilla looked rather relieved.
"So you do know something then, thank goodness! You're not quite a
heathen. Where did you learn that?"
"Oh, at the asylum Sunday-school. They made us learn the whole
catechism. I liked it pretty well. There's something splendid about some
of the words. 'Infinite, eternal and unchangeable.' Isn't that grand? It
has such a roll to it-just like a big organ playing. You couldn't quite
call it poetry, I suppose, but it sounds a lot like it, doesn't it?"
"We're not talking about poetry, Anne-we are talking about saying
your prayers. Don't you know it's a terrible wicked thing not to say your
prayers every night? I'm afraid you are a very bad little girl."
"You'd find it easier to be bad than good if you had red hair," said
Anne reproachfully. "People who haven't red hair don't know what trouble
is. Mrs. Thomas told me that God made my hair red ON PURPOSE, and I've
never cared about Him since. And anyhow I'd always be too tired at night
to bother saying prayers. People who have to look after twins can't be
expected to say their prayers. Now, do you honestly think they can?"
Marilla decided that Anne's religious training must be begun at once.
Plainly there was no time to be lost.
"You must say your prayers while you are under my roof, Anne."
"Why, of course, if you want me to," assented Anne cheerfully. "I'd
do anything to oblige you. But you'll have to tell me what to say for this
once. After I get into bed I'll imagine out a real nice prayer to say
always. I believe that it will be quite interesting, now that I come to
think of it."
"You must kneel down," said Marilla in embarrassment.
Anne knelt at Marilla's knee and looked up gravely.
"Why must people kneel down to pray?" If I really wanted to pray I'll
tell you what I'd do. I'd go out into a great big field all alone or into
the deep, deep, woods, and I'd look up into the sky-up-up-up-into that
lovely blue sky that looks as if there was no end to its blueness. And
then I'd just FEEL a prayer. Well, I'm ready. What am I to say?"
Marilla felt more embarrassed than ever. She had intended to teach
Anne the childish classic, "Now I lay me down to sleep." But she had, as I
have told you, the glimmerings of a sense of humor-which is simply another
name for a sense of fitness of things; and it suddenly occurred to her
that that simple little prayer, sacred to white-robed childhood lisping at
motherly knees, was entirely unsuited to this freckled witch of a girl who
knew and cared nothing bout God's love, since she had never had it
translated to her through the medium of human love.
"You're old enough to pray for yourself, Anne," she said finally.
"Just thank God for your blessings and ask Him humbly for the things you
want."
"Well, I'll do my best," promised Anne, burying her face in Marilla's
lap. "Gracious heavenly Father-that's the way the ministers say it in
church, so I suppose it's all right in private prayer, isn't it?" she
interjected, lifting her head for a moment.

"Gracious heavenly Father, I thank Thee for the White Way of Delight
and the Lake of Shining Waters and Bonny and the Snow Queen. I'm really
extremely grateful for them. And that's all the blessings I can think of
just now to thank Thee for. As for the things I want, they're so numerous
that it would take a great deal of time to name them all so I will only
mention the two most important. Please let me stay at Green Gables; and
please let me be good-looking when I grow up.
I remain,
"Yours respectfully,
Anne Shirley.

"There, did I do all right?" she asked eagerly, getting up. "I could
have made it much more flowery if I'd had a little more time to think it
over."
Poor Marilla was only preserved from complete collapse by remembering
that it was not irreverence, but simply spiritual ignorance on the part of
Anne that was responsible for this extraordinary petition. She tucked the
child up in bed, mentally vowing that she should be taught a prayer the
very next day, and was leaving the room with the light when Anne called
her back.
"I've just thought of it now. I should have said, `Amen' in place of
`yours respectfully,' shouldn't I?-the way the ministers do. I'd forgotten
it, but I felt a prayer should be finished off in some way, so I put in
the other. Do you suppose it will make any difference?"
"I-I don't suppose it will," said Marilla. "Go to sleep now like a
good child. Good night."
"I can only say good night tonight with a clear conscience," said
Anne, cuddling luxuriously down among her pillows.
Marilla retreated to the kitchen, set the candle firmly on the table,
and glared at Matthew.
"Matthew Cuthbert, it's about time somebody adopted that child and
taught her something. She's next door to a perfect heathen. Will you
believe that she never said a prayer in her life till tonight? I'll send
her to the manse tomorrow and borrow the Peep of the Day series, that's
what I'll do. And she shall go to Sunday-school just as soon as I can get
some suitable clothes made for her. I foresee that I shall have my hands
full. Well, well, we can't get through this world without our share of
trouble. I've had a pretty easy life of it so far, but my time has come at
last and I suppose I'll just have to make the best of it."

8. Anne's Bringing-up Is Begun

For reasons best known to herself, Marilla did not tell Anne that she
was to stay at Green Gables until the next afternoon. During the forenoon
she kept the child busy with various tasks and watched over her with a
keen eye while she did them. By noon she had concluded that Anne was smart
and obedient, willing to work and quick to learn; her most serious
shortcoming seemed to be a tendency to fall into daydreams in the middle
of a task and forget all about it until such time as she was sharply
recalled to earth by a reprimand or a catastrophe.
When Anne had finished washing the dinner dishes she suddenly
confronted Marilla with the air and expression of one desperately
determined to learn the worst. Her thin little body trembled from head to
foot; her face flushed and her eyes dilated until they were almost black;
she clasped her hands tightly and said in an imploring voice:
"Oh, please, Miss Cuthbert, won't you tell me if you are going to
send me away or not?" I've tried to be patient all the morning, but I
really feel that I cannot bear not knowing any longer. It's a dreadful
feeling. Please tell me."
"You haven't scalded the dishcloth in clean hot water as I told you
to do," said Marilla immovably. "Just go and do it before you ask any more
questions, Anne."
Anne went and attended to the dishcloth. Then she returned to Marilla
and fastened imploring eyes of the latter's face.
"Well," said Marilla, unable to find any excuse for deferring her
explanation longer, "I suppose I might as well tell you. Matthew and I
have decided to keep you-that is, if you will try to be a good little girl
and show yourself grateful. Why, child, whatever is the matter?"
"I'm crying," said Anne in a tone of bewilderment. "I can't think
why. I'm glad as glad can be. Oh, GLAD doesn't seem the right word at all.
I was glad about the White Way and the cherry blossoms-but this! Oh, it's
something more than glad. I'm so happy. I'll try to be so good. It will be
uphill work, I expect, for Mrs. Thomas often told me I was desperately
wicked. However, I'll do my very best. But can you tell me why I'm crying?"
"I suppose it's because you're all excited and worked up," said
Marilla disapprovingly. "Sit down on that chair and try to calm yourself.
I'm afraid you both cry and laugh far too easily. Yes, you can stay here
and we will try to do right by you. You must go to school; but it's only a
fortnight till vacation so it isn't worth while for you to start before it
opens again in September."
"What am I to call you?" asked Anne. "Shall I always say Miss
Cuthbert? Can I call you Aunt Marilla?"
"No; you'll call me just plain Marilla. I'm not used to being called
Miss Cuthbert and it would make me nervous."
"It sounds awfully disrespectful to just say Marilla," protested
Anne.
"I guess there'll be nothing disrespectful in it if you're careful to
speak respectfully. Everybody, young and old, in Avonlea calls me Marilla
except the minister. He says Miss Cuthbert-when he thinks of it."
"I'd love to call you Aunt Marilla," said Anne wistfully. "I've never
had an aunt or any relation at all-not even a grandmother. It would make
me feel as if I really belonged to you. Can't I call you Aunt Marilla?"
"No. I'm not your aunt and I don't believe in calling people names
that don't belong to them."
"But we could imagine you were my aunt."
"I couldn't," said Marilla grimly.
"Do you never imagine things different from what they really are?"
asked Anne wide-eyed.
"No."
"Oh!" Anne drew a long breath. "Oh, Miss-Marilla, how much you miss!"
"I don't believe in imagining things different from what they really
are," retorted Marilla. "When the Lord puts us in certain circ*mstances He
doesn't mean for us to imagine them away. And that reminds me. Go into the
sitting room, Anne-be sure your feet are clean and don't let any flies
in-and bring me out the illustrated card that's on the mantelpiece. The
Lord's Prayer is on it and you'll devote your spare time this afternoon to
learning it off by heart. There's to be no more of such praying as I heard
last night."
"I suppose I was very awkward," said Anne apologetically, "but then,
you see, I'd never had any practice. You couldn't really expect a person
to pray very well the first time she tried, could you? I thought out a
splendid prayer after I went to bed, just as I promised you I would. It
was nearly as long as a minister's and so poetical. But would you believe
it? I couldn't remember one word when I woke up this morning. And I'm
afraid I'll never be able to think to another one as good. Somehow, things
never are so good when they're thought out a second time. Have you ever
noticed that?"
"Here is something for you to notice, Anne. When I tell you to do a
thing I want you to obey me at once and not stand stock-still and
discourse about it. Just you go and do as I bid you."
Anne promptly departed for the sitting-room across the hall; she
failed to return; after waiting ten minutes Marilla laid down her knitting
and marched after her with a grim expression. She found Anne standing
motionless before a picture hanging on the wall between the two windows,
with her eyes astar with dreams. The white and green light strained
through apple trees and clustering vines outside fell over the rapt little
figure with a half-unearthly radiance.
"Anne, whatever are you thinking of?" demanded Marilla sharply.
Anne came back to earth with a start.
"That," she said, pointing to the picture-a rather vivid chromo
entitled, "Christ Blessing Little Children"-"and I was just imagining I
was one of them-that I was the little girl in the blue dress, standing off
by herself in the corner as if she didn't belong to anybody, like me. She
looks lonely and sad, don't you think? I guess she hadn't any father or
mother of her own. But she wanted to be blessed, too, so she just crept
shyly up on the outside of the crowd, hoping nobody would notice
her-except Him. I'm sure I know just how she felt. Her heart must have
beat and her hands must have got cold, like mine did when I asked you if I
could stay. She was afraid He mightn't notice her. But it's likely He did,
don't you think? I've been trying to imagine it all out-her edging a
little nearer all the time until she was quite close to Him; and then He
would look at her and put His hand on her hair and oh, such a thrill of
joy as would run over her! But I wish the artist hadn't painted Him so
sorrowful looking. All His pictures are like that, if you've noticed. But
I don't believe He could really have looked so sad or the children would
have been afraid of Him."
"Anne," said Marilla, wondering why she had not broken into this
speech long before, "you shouldn't talk that way. It's
irreverent-positively irreverent."
Anne's eyes marveled.
"Why, I felt just as reverent as could be. I'm sure I didn't mean to
be irreverent."
"Well I don't suppose you did-but it doesn't sound right to talk so
familiarly about such things. And another thing. Anne, when I send you
after something you're to bring it at once and not fall into mooning and
imagining before pictures. Remember that. Take that card and come right to
the kitchen. Now, sit down in the corner and learn that prayer off by
heart."
Anne set the card up against the jugful of apple blossoms she had
brought in to decorate the dinnertable-Marilla had eyed that decoration
askance, but had said nothingpropped her chin on her hands, and fell to
studying it intently for several silent minutes.
"I like this," she announced at length. "It's beautiful. I've heard
it before-I heard the superintendent of the asylum Sunday school say it
over once. But I didn't like it then. He had such a cracked voice and he
prayed it so mournfully. I really felt sure he thought praying was a
disagreeable duty. This isn't poetry, but it makes me feel just the same
way poetry does. `Our Father who art in heaven hallowed be Thy name.' That
is just like a line of music. Oh, I'm so glad you thought of making me
learn this, MissMarilla."
"Well, learn it and hold your tongue," said Marilla shortly.
Anne tipped the vase of apple blossoms near enough to bestow a soft
kiss on a pink-cupped but, and then studied diligently for some moments
longer.
"Marilla," she demanded presently, "do you think that I shall ever
have a bosom friend in Avonlea?"
"A-a what kind of friend?"
'A bosom friend-an intimate friend, you know-a really kindred spirit
to whom I can confide my inmost soul. I've dreamed of meeting her all my
life. I never really supposed I would, but so many of my loveliest dreams
have come true all at once that perhaps this one will, too. Do you think
it's possible?"
"Diana Barry lives over at Orchard Slope and she's about your age.
She's a very nice little girl, and perhaps she will be a playmate for you
when she comes home. She's visiting her aunt over at Carmody just now.
You'll have to be careful how you behave yourself, though. Mrs. Barry is a
very particular woman. She won't let Diana play with any little girl who
isn't nice and good."
Anne looked at Marilla through the apple blossoms, her eyes aglow
with interest.
"What is Diana like? Her hair isn't red, is it? Oh, I hope not. It's
bad enough to have red hair myself, but I positively couldn't endure it in
a bosom friend."
"Diana is a very pretty little girl. She has black eyes and hair and
rosy cheeks. And she is good and smart, which is better than being pretty."
Marilla was as fond of morals as the duch*ess in Wonderland, and was
firmly convinced that one should be tacked on to every remark made to a
child who was being brought up.
But Anne waved the moral inconsequently aside and seized only on the
delightful possibilities before it.
"Oh, I'm so glad she's pretty. Next to being beautiful oneself-and
that's impossible in my case-it would be best to have a beautiful bosom
friend. When I lived with Mrs. Thomas she had a bookcase in her sitting
room with glass doors. There weren't any books in it; Mrs. Thomas kept her
best china and her preserves there-when she had any preserves to deep. One
of the doors was broken. Mr. Thomas smashed it one night when he was
slightly intoxicated. But the other was whole and I used to pretend that
my reflection in it was another little girl who lived in it. I called her
Katie Maurice, and we were very intimate. I used to talk to her by the
hour, especially on Sunday, and tell her everything. Katie was the comfort
and consolation of my life. We used to pretend that the bookcase was
enchanted and that if I only knew the spell I could open the door and step
right into the room where Katie Maurice lived, instead of into Mrs.
Thomas' shelves of preserves and china. And then Katie Maurice would have
taken me by the hand and led me out into a wonderful place, all flowers
and sunshine and fairies, and we would have lived there happy for ever
after. When I went to live with Mrs. Hammond it just broke my heart to
leave Katie Maurice. She felt it dreadfully, too, I know she did, for she
was crying when she kissed me good-bye through the bookcase door. There
was no bookcase at Mrs. Hammond's. But just up the river a little way from
the house there was a long green little valley, and the loveliest echo
lived there. It echoed back every word you said, even if you didn't talk a
bit loud. So I imagined that it was a little girl called Violetta and we
were great friends and I loved her almost as well as I loved Katie
Maurice-not quite, but almost, you know. The night before I went to the
asylum I said good-bye to Violetta, and oh, her good-bye came back to me
in such sad, sad tomes. I had become so attached to her that I hadn't the
heart to imagine a bosom friend at the asylum, even if there had been any
scope for imagination there."
"I think it's just as well there wasn't," said Marilla drily. "I
don't approve of such goings-on. You seem to half believe your own
imaginations. It will be well for you to have a real live friend to put
such nonsense out of your head. But don't let Mrs. Barry hear you talking
about your Katie Maurices and your Violettas or she'll think you tell
stories."
"Oh, I won't. I couldn't talk of them to everybody-their memories are
too sacred for that. But I thought I'd like to have you know about them.
Oh, look, here's a big bee just tumbled out of an apple blossom. Just
think what a lovely place to live-in an apple blossom! Fancy going to
sleep in it when the wind was rocking it. If I wasn't a human girl I think
I'd like to be a bee and live among the flowers."
"Yesterday you wanted to be a sea gull," sniffed Marilla. "I think
you are very fickle minded. I told you to learn that prayer and not talk.
But it seems impossible for you to stop talking if you've got anybody that
will listen to you. So go up to your room and learn it."
"Oh, I know it pretty nearly all now-all but just the last line."
"Well, never mind, do as I tell you. Go to your room and finish
learning it well, and stay there until I call you down to help me get tea."
"Can I take the apple blossoms with me for company?" pleaded Anne.
"No; you don't want your room cluttered up with flowers. You should
have left them on the tree in the first place."
"I did feel a little that way, too," said Anne. "I kind of felt I
shouldn't shorten their lovely lives by picking them-I wouldn't want to be
picked if I were an apple blossom. But the temptation was IRRESISTIBLE.
What do you do when you meet with an irresistible temptation?"
"Anne, did you hear me tell you to go to your room?"
Anne sighed, retreated to the east gable, and sat down in a chair by
the window.
"There-I know this prayer. I learned that last sentence coming
upstairs. Now I'm going to imagine things into this room so that they'll
always stay imagined. The floor is covered with a white velvet carpet with
pink roses all over it and there are pink silk curtains at the windows.
The furniture is mahogany. I never saw any mahogany, but it does sound SO
luxurious. This is a couch all heaped with gorgeous silken cushions, pink
and blue and crimson and gold, and I am reclining gracefully on it. I can
see my reflection in that splendid big mirror hanging on the wall. I am
tall and regal, clad in a gown of trailing white lace, with a pearl cross
on my breast and pearls in my hair. My hair is of midnight darkness and my
skin is a clear ivory pallor. My name is the Lady Cordelia Fitzgerald. No,
it isn't-I can't make THAT seem real."
She danced up to the little looking-glass and peered into it. Her
pointed freckled face and solemn gray eyes peered back at her.
"You're only Anne of Green Gables," she said earnestly, "and I see
you, just as you are looking now, whenever I try to imagine I'm the Lady
Cordelia. But it's a million times nicer to be Anne of Green Gables than
Anne of nowhere in particular, isn't it?"
She bent forward, kissed her reflection affectionately, and betook
herself to the open window

"Dear Snow Queen, good afternoon. And good afternoon dear birches
down in the hollow. And good afternoon, dear gray house up on the hill. I
wonder if Diana is to be my bosom friend. I hope she will, and I shall
love her very much. But I must never quite forget Katie Maurice and
Violetta. They would feel so hurt if I did and I'd hate to hurt anybody's
feelings, even a little bookcase girl's or a little echo girl's. I must be
careful to remember them and send them a kiss every day."

Anne blew a couple of airy kisses from her fingertips past the cherry
blossoms and then, with her chin in her hands, drifted luxuriously out on
a sea of daydreams.

9. Mrs. Rachel Lynde Is Properly Horrified

Anne had been a fortnight at Green Gables before Mrs. Lynde arrived
to inspect her. Mrs. Rachel, to do her justice, was not to blame for this.
A severe and unseasonable attack of grippe had confined that good lady to
her house ever since the occasion of her last visit to Green Gables. Mrs.
Rachel was not often sick and had a welldefined contempt for people who
were; but grippe, she asserted, was like no other illness on earth and
could only be interpreted as one of the special visitations of Providence.
As soon as her doctor allowed her to put her foot out-of-doors she hurried
up to Green Gables, bursting with curiosity to see Matthew's and Marilla's
orphan, concerning whom all sorts of stories and suppositions had gone
abroad in Avonlea.
Anne had made good use of every waking moment of that fortnight.
Already she was acquainted with every tree and shrub about the place. She
had discovered that a lane opened out below the apple orchard and ran up
through a belt of woodland; and she had explored it to its furthest end in
all its delicious vagaries of brook and bridge, fir coppice and wild
cherry arch, corners thick with fern, and branching byways of maple and
mountain ash.
She had made friends with the spring down in the hollowthat wonderful
deep, clear icy-cold spring; it was set about with smooth red sandstones
and rimmed in by great palm-like clumps of water fern; and beyond it was a
log bridge over the brook.
That bridge led Anne's dancing feet up over a wooded hill beyond,
where perpetual twilight reigned under the straight, thick-growing firs
and spruces; the only flowers there were myriads of delicate "June bells,"
those shyest and sweetest of woodland blood, and a few pale, aerial
starflowers, like the spirits of last year's blossoms. Gossamers glimmered
like threads of silver among the trees and the fir boughs and tassels
seemed to utter friendly speech.
All these raptured voyages of exploration were made in the odd half
hours which she was allowed for play, and Anne talked Matthew and Marilla
halfdeaf over her discoveries. Not that Matthew complained, to be sure; he
listened to it all with a wordless smile of enjoyment on his face; Marilla
permitted the "chatter" until she found herself becoming too interested in
it, whereupon she always promptly quenched Anne by a curt command to hold
her tongue.
Anne was out in the orchard when Mrs. Rachel came, wandering at her
own sweet will through the lush, tremulous grasses splashed with ruddy
evening sunshine; so that good lady had an excellent chance to talk her
illness fully over, describing every ache and pulse beat with such evident
enjoyment that Marilla thought even grippe must bring its compensations.
When details were exhausted Mrs. Rachel introduced the real reason of her
call.
"I've been hearing some surprising things about you and Matthew."
"I don't suppose you are any more surprised than I am myself," said
Marilla. "I'm getting over my surprise now."
"It was too bad there was such a mistake," said Mrs. Rachel
sympathetically. "Couldn't you have sent her back?"
"I suppose we could, but we decided not to. Matthew took a fancy to
her. And I must say I like her myselfalthough I admit she has her faults.
The house seems a different place already. She's a real bright little
thing."
Marilla said more than she had intended to say when she began, for
she read disapproval in Mrs. Rachel's expression.
"It's a great responsibility you've taken on yourself," said that
lady gloomily, "especially when you've never had any experience with
children. You don't know much about her or her real disposition, I
suppose, and there's no guessing how a child like that will turn out. But
I don't want to discourage you I'm sure, Marilla."
"I'm not feeling discouraged," was Marilla's dry response. "when I
make up my mind to do a thing it stays made up. I suppose you'd like to
see Anne. I'll call her in."
Anne came running in presently, her face sparkling with the delight
of her orchard rovings; but, abashed at finding the delight herself in the
unexpected presence of a stranger, she halted confusedly inside the door.
She certainly was an odd-looking little creature in the short tight wincey
dress she had worn from the asylum, below which her thin legs seemed
ungracefully long. Her freckles were more numerous and obtrusive than
ever; the wind had ruffled her hatless hair into over-brilliant disorder;
it had never looked redder than at that moment.
"Well, they didn't pick you for your looks, that's sure and certain,"
was Mrs. Rachel Lynde's emphatic comment. Mrs. Rachel was one of those
delightful and popular people who pride themselves on speaking their mind
without fear or favor. "She's terrible skinny and homely, Marilla. Come
here, child, and let me have a look at you. Lawful heart, did any one ever
see such freckles? And hair as red as carrots! Come here, child, I say."
Anne "came there," but not exactly as Mrs. Rachel expected. With one
bound she crossed the kitchen floor and stood before Mrs. Rachel, her face
scarlet with anger, her lips quivering, and her whole slender form
trembling from head to foot.
"I hate you," she cried in a choked voice, stamping her foot on the
floor. "I hate you-I hate you-I hate you-" a louder stamp with each
assertion of hatred. "How dare you call me skinny and ugly? Hew dare you
say I'm freckled and redheaded? You are a rude, impolite, unfeeling woman!"
"Anne!" exclaimed Marilla in consternation.
But Anne continued to face Mrs. Rachel undauntedly, head up, eyes
blazing, hands clenched, passionate indignation exhaling from her like an
atmosphere.
"How dare you say such things about me?" she repeated vehemently.
"How would you like to have such things said about you? How would you like
to be told that you are fat and clumsy and probably hadn't a spark of
imagination in you? I don't care if I do hurt your feelings by saying so!
I hope I hurt them. You have hurt mine worse than they were ever hurt
before even by Mrs. Thomas' intoxicated husband. And I'll NEVER forgive
you for it, never, never!"
Stamp! Stamp!
"Did anybody ever see such a temper!" exclaimed the horrified Mrs.
Rachel.
"Anne go to your room and stay there until I come up," said Marilla,
recovering her powers of speech with difficulty.
Anne, bursting into tears, rushed to the hall door, slammed it until
the tins on the porch wall outside rattled in sympathy, and fled through
the hall and up the stairs like a whirlwind. A subdued slam above told
that the door of the east gable had been shut with equal vehemence.
"Well, I don't envy you your job bringing THAT up, Marilla," said
Mrs. Rachel with unspeakable solemnity.
Marilla opened her lips to say she knew not what of apology or
deprecation. What she did say was a surprise to herself then and ever
afterwards.
"You shouldn't have twitted her about her looks, Rachel."
"Marilla Cuthbert, you don't mean to say that you are upholding her
in such a terrible display of temper as we've just seen?" demanded Mrs.
Rachel indignantly.
"No," said Marilla slowly, "I'm not trying to excuse her. She's been
very naughty and I'll have to give her a talking to about it. But we must
make allowances for her. She's never been taught what is right. And you
WERE too hard on her, Rachel."
Marilla could not help tacking on that last sentence, although she
was again surprised at herself for doing it. Mrs. Rachel got up with an
air of offended dignity.
"Well, I see that I'll have to be very careful what I say after this,
Marilla, since the fine feelings of orphans, brought from goodness knows
where, have to be considered before anything else. Oh, no, I'm not
vexed-don't worry yourself. I'm too sorry for you to leave any room for
anger in my mind. You'll have your own troubles with that child. But if
you'll take my advice-which I suppose you won't do, although I've brought
up ten children and buried two-you'll do that `talking to' you mention
with a fairsized birch switch. I should think THAT would be the most
effective language for that kind of a child. Her temper matches her hair I
guess. Well, good evening, Marilla. I hope you'll come down to see me
often as usual. But you can't expect me to visit here again in a hurry, if
I'm liable to be flown at and insulted in such a fashion. It's something
new in MY experience."
Whereat Mrs. Rachel swept out and away-if a fat woman who always
waddled COULD be said to sweep away-and Marilla with a very solemn face
betook herself to the east gable.
On the way upstairs she pondered uneasily as to what she ought to do.
She felt no little dismay over the scene that had just been enacted. How
unfortunate that Anne should have displayed such temper before Mrs. Rachel
Lynde, of all people! Then Marilla suddenly became aware of an
uncomfortable and rebuking consciousness that she felt more humiliation
over this than sorrow over the discovery of such a serious defect in
Anne's disposition. And how was she to punish her? The amiable suggestion
of the birch switch-to the efficiency of which all of Mrs. Rachel's own
children could have borne smarting testimonydid not appeal to Marilla. She
did not believe she could whip a child. No, some other method of
punishment must be found to bring Anne to a proper realization of the
enormity of her offense.
Marilla found Anne face downward on her bed, crying bitterly, quite
oblivious of muddy boots on a clean counterpane.
"Anne," she said not ungently.
No answer.
"Anne," with greater severity, "get off that bed this minute and
listen to what I have to say to you."
Anne squirmed off the bed and sat rigidly on a chair beside it, her
face swollen and tear-stained and her eyes fixed stubbornly on the floor.
"This is a nice way for you to behave. Anne! Aren't you ashamed of
yourself?"
"She hadn't any right to call me ugly and redheaded," retorted Anne,
evasive and defiant.
"You hadn't any right to fly into such a fury and talk the way you
did to her, Anne. I was ashamed of youthoroughly ashamed of you. I wanted
you to behave nicely to Mrs. Lynde, and instead of that you have disgraced
me. I'm sure I don't know why you should lose your temper like that just
because Mrs. Lynde said you were redhaired and homely. You say it yourself
often enough."
"Oh, but there's such a difference between saying a thing yourself
and hearing other people say it," wailed Anne. "You may know a thing is
so, but you can't help hoping other people don't quite think it is. I
suppose you think I have an awful temper, but I couldn't help it. When she
said those things something just rose right up in me and choked me. I HAD
to fly out at her."
"Well, you made a fine exhibition of yourself I must say. Mrs. Lynde
will have a nice story to tell about you everywhere-and she'll tell it,
too. It was a dreadful thing for you to lose your temper like that, Anne."
"Just imagine how you would feel if somebody told you to your face
that you were skinny and ugly," pleaded Anne tearfully.
An old remembrance suddenly rose up before Marilla. She had been a
very small child when she had heard one aunt say of her to another, "What
a pity she is such a dark, homely little thing." Marilla was every day of
fifty before the sting had gone out of that memory.
"I don't say that I think Mrs. Lynde was exactly right in saying what
she did to you, Anne," she admitted in a softer tone. "Rachel is too
outspoken. But that is no excuse for such behavior on your part. She was a
stranger and an elderly person and my visitor-all three very good reasons
why you should have been respectful to her. You were rude and saucy
and"-Marilla had a saving inspiration of punishment-"you must go to her
and tell her you are very sorry for your bad temper and ask her to forgive
you."
"I can never do that," said Anne determinedly and darkly. "You can
punish me in any way you like, Marilla. You can shut me up in a dark, damp
dungeon inhabited by snakes and toads and feed me only on bread and water
and I shall not complain. But I cannot ask Mrs. Lynde to forgive me."
"We're not in the habit of shutting people up in dark damp dungeons,"
said Marilla drily, "especially as they're rather scarce in Avonlea. But
apologize to Mrs. Lynde you must and shall and you'll stay here in your
room until you can tell me you're willing to do it."
"I shall have to stay here forever then," said Anne mournfully,
"because I can't tell Mrs. Lynde I'm sorry I said those things to her. How
can I? I'm NOT sorry. I'm sorry I've vexed you; but I'm GLAD I told her
just what I did. It was a great satisfaction. I can't say I'm sorry when
I'm not, can I? I can't even IMAGINE I'm sorry."
"Perhaps your imagination will be in better working order by the
morning," said Marilla, rising to depart. "You'll have the night to think
over your conduct in and come to a better frame of mind. You said you
would try to be a very good girl if we kept you at Green Gables, but I
must say it hasn't seemed very much like it this evening."
Leaving this Parthian shaft to rankle in Anne's stormy bosom, Marilla
descended to the kitchen, grievously troubled in mind and vexed in soul.
She was as angry with herself as with Anne, because, whenever she recalled
Mrs. Rachel's dumbfounded countenance her lips twitched with amusem*nt and
she felt a most reprehensible desire to laugh.

10. Anne's Apology

Marilla said nothing to Matthew about the affair that evening; but
when Anne proved still refractory the next morning an explanation had to
be made to account for her absence from the breakfast table. Marilla told
Matthew the whole story, taking pains to impress him with a due sense of
the enormity of Anne's behavior.
"It's a good thing Rachel Lynde got a calling down; she's a
meddlesome old gossip," was Matthew's consolatory rejoinder.
"Matthew Cuthbert, I'm astonished at you. You know that Anne's
behavior was dreadful, and yet you take her part! I suppose you'll be
saying next thing that she oughtn't to be punished at all!"
"Well now-no-not exactly," said Matthew uneasily. I reckon she ought
to be punished a little. But don't be too hard on her, Marilla. Recollect
she hasn't ever had anyone to teach her right. You're-you're going to give
her something to eat, aren't you?"
"When did you ever hear of me starving people into good behavior?"
demanded Marilla indignantly. "She'll have her meals regular, and I'll
carry them up to her myself. But she'll stay up there until she's willing
to apologize to Mrs. Lynde, and that's final, Matthew."
Breakfast, dinner, and supper were very silent meals-for Anne still
remained obdurate. After each meal Marilla carried a well-filled tray to
the east gable and brought it down later on not noticeably depleted.
Matthew eyed its last descent with a troubled eye. Had Anne eaten anything
at all?
When Marilla went out that evening to bring the cows from the back
pasture, Matthew, who had been hanging about the barns and watching,
slopped into the house with the air of a burglar and crept upstairs. As a
general thing Matthew gravitated between the kitchen and the little
bedroom off the hall where he slept; once in a while he ventured
uncomfortable into the parlor or sitting room when the minister came to
tea. But he had never been upstairs in his own house since the spring he
helped Marilla paper the spare bedroom, and that was four years ago.
He tiptoed along the hall and stood for several minutes outside the
door of the east gable before he summoned courage to tap on it with his
fingers and then open the door to peep in.
Anne was sitting on the yellow chair by the window gazing mournfully
out into the garden. Very small and unhappy she looked, and Matthew's
heart smote him. He softly closed the door and tiptoed over to her.
"Anne," he whispered, as if afraid of being overheard, "how are you
making it, Anne?"
Anne smiled wanly.
"Pretty well. I imagine a good deal, and that helps to pass the time.
Of course, it's rather lonesome. But then, I may as well get used to that."
Anne smiled again, bravely facing the long years of solitary
imprisonment before her.
Matthew recollected that he must say what he had come to say without
loss of time, lest Marilla return prematurely.
"Well now, Anne, don't you think you'd better do it and have it over
with?" he whispered. "It'll have to be done sooner or later, you know, for
Marilla's a dreadful determined woman-dreadful determined, Anne. Do it
right off, I say, and have it over."
"Do you mean apologize to Mrs. Lynde?"
"Yes-apologize-that's the very word," said Matthew eagerly. "Just
smooth it over so to speak. That's what I was trying to get at."
"I suppose I could do it to oblige you," said Anne thoughtfully. "It
would be true enough to say I am sorry, because I AM sorry now. I wasn't a
bit sorry last night. I was mad clear through, and I stayed mad all night.
I know I did because I woke up three times and I was just furious every
time. But this morning it was over. I wasn't in a temper anymore-and it
left a dreadful sort of goneness, too. I felt so ashamed of myself. But I
just couldn't think of going and telling Mrs. Lynde so. It would be so
humiliating. I made up my mind I'd stay shut up here forever rather than
do that. But still-I'd do anything for you-if you really want me to-"
"Well now, of course I do. It's terrible lonesome downstairs without
you. Just go and smooth things overthat's a good girl."
"Very well," said Anne resignedly. "I'll tell Marilla as soon as she
comes in I've repented."
"That's right-that's right, Anne. But don't tell Marilla I said
anything about it. She might think I was putting my oar in and I promised
not to do that."
"Wild horses won't drag the secret from me," promised Anne solemnly.
"How would wild horses drag a secret from a person anyhow?"
But Matthew was gone, scared at his own success. He fled hastily to
the remotest corner of the horse pasture lest Marilla should suspect what
he had been up to. Marilla herself, upon her return to the house, was
agreeably surprised to hear a plaintive voice calling, "Marilla" over the
banisters.
"Well?" she said, going into the hall.
"I'm sorry I lost my temper and said rude things, and I'm willing to
go and tell Mrs. Lynde so."
"Very well." Marilla's crispness gave no sign of her relief. She had
been wondering what under the canopy she should do if Anne did not give
in. "I'll take you down after milking."
Accordingly, after milking, behold Marilla and Anne walking down the
lane, the former erect and triumphant, the latter drooping and dejected.
But halfway down Anne's dejection vanished as if by enchantment. She
lifted her head and stepped lightly along, her eyes fixed on the sunset
sky and an air of subdued exhilaration about her Marilla beheld the change
disapprovingly. This was no meek penitent such as it behooved her to take
into the presence of the offended Mrs. Lynde.
"What are you thinking of, Anne?" she asked sharply.
"I'm imagining out what i must say to Mrs. Lynde," answered Anne
dreamily.
This was satisfactory-or should have been so. But Marilla could not
rid herself of the notion that something in her scheme of punishment was
going askew. Anne had no business to look so rapt and radiant.
Rapt and radiant Anne continued until they were in the very presence
of Mrs. Lynde, who was sitting knitting by her kitchen window. Then the
radiance vanished. Mournful penitence appeared on every feature. Before a
word was spoken Anne suddenly went down on her knees before the astonished
Mrs. Rachel and held out her hands beseechingly.
"Oh, Mrs. Lynde, I am so extremely sorry," she said with a quiver in
her voice. "I could never express all my sorrow, no, not if I used up a
whole dictionary. You must just imagine it. I behaved terribly to you-and
I've disgraced the dear friends, Matthew and Marilla, who have let me stay
at Green Gables although I'm not a boy. I'm a dreadfully wicked and
ungrateful girl, and I deserve to be punished and cast out by respectable
people forever. It was very wicked of me to fly into a temper because you
told me the truth. It WAS the truth; every word you said was true. My hair
is red and I'm freckled and skinny and ugly. What i said to you was true,
too, but I shouldn't have said it. Oh, Mrs. Lynde, please, please, forgive
me. If you refuse it will be a lifelong sorrow on a poor little orphan
girl would you, even if she had a dreadful temper? Oh, I am sure you
wouldn't. Please say you forgive me, Mrs. Lynde."
Anne clasped her hands together, bowed her head, and waited for the
word of judgment.
There was no mistaking her sincerity-it breathed in every tone of her
voice. Both Marilla and Mrs. Lynde recognized its unmistakable ring. But
the former understood in dismay that Anne was actually enjoying her valley
of humiliation-was reveling in the thoroughness of her abasem*nt. Where
was the wholesome punishment upon which she, Marilla, had plumed herself?
Anne had turned it into a species of positive pleasure.
Good Mrs. Lynde, not being overburdened with perception. did not see
this. She only perceived that Anne had made a very thorough apology and
all resentment vanished from her kindly, if somewhat officious, heart.
"There, there, get up, child," she said heartily. "Of course I
forgive you. I guess I was a little too hard on you, anyway. But I'm such
an outspoken person. You just mustn't mind me, that's what. It can't be
denied your hair is terrible red; but I knew a girl once-went to school
with her, in fact-whose hair was every mite as red as yours when she was
young, but when she grew up it darkened to a real handsome auburn. I
wouldn't be a mite surprised if yours did, too-not a mite."
"Oh, Mrs. Lynde!" Anne drew a long breath as she rose to her feet.
"You have given me a hope. I shall always feel that you are a benefactor.
Oh, I could endure anything if I only thought my hair would be a handsome
auburn when I grew up. It would be so much easier to be good if one's hair
was a handsome auburn, don't you think? And now may I go out into your
garden and sit on that bench under the apple-trees while you and Marilla
are talking? There is so much more scope for imagination out there."
"Laws, yes, run along, child. And you can pick a bouquet of them
white June lilies over in the corner if you like."
As the door closed behind Anne Mrs. Lynde got briskly up to light a
lamp.
"She's a real odd little thing. Take this chair, Marilla; it's easier
than the one you've got; I just keep that for the hired boy to sit on.
Yes, she certainly is an odd child, but there is something kind of taking
about her after all. I don't feel so surprised at you and Matthew keeping
her as I did-nor so sorry for you, either. She may turn out all right. Of
course, she has a queer way of expressing herselfa little too-well, too
kind of forcible, you know; but she'll likely get over that now that she's
come to live among civilized folks. And then, her temper's pretty quick, I
guess; but there's one comfort, a child that has a quick temper, just
blaze up and cool down, ain't never likely to be sly or deceitful.
Preserve me from a sly child, that's what. On the whole, Marilla, I kind
of like her."
When Marilla went home Anne came out of the fragrant twilight of the
orchard with a sheaf of white narcissi in her hands.
"I apologized pretty well, didn't I?" she said proudly as they went
down the lane. "I thought since I had to do it I might as well do it
thoroughly."
"You did it thoroughly, all right enough," was Marilla's comment.
Marilla was dismayed at finding herself inclined to laugh over the
recollection. She had also an uneasy feeling that she ought to scold Anne
for apologizing so well; but then, that was ridiculous! She compromised
with her conscience by saying severely:
"I hope you won't have occasion to make many more such apologies. I
hope you'll try to control your temper now, Anne."
"That wouldn't be so hard if people wouldn't twit me about my looks,"
said Anne with a sigh. "I don't get cross about other things; but I'm SO
tired of being twitted about my hair and it just makes me boil right over.
Do you suppose my hair will really be a handsome auburn when I grow up?"
"You shouldn't think so much about your looks, Anne. I'm afraid you
are a very vain little girl."
"How can I be vain when I know I'm homely?" protested Anne. "I love
pretty things; and I hate to look in the glass and see something that
isn't pretty. It makes me feel so sorrowful-just as I feel when I look at
any ugly thing. I pity it because it isn't beautiful."
"Handsome is as handsome does," quoted Marilla.
"I've had that said to me before, but I have my doubts about it,"
remarked skeptical Anne, sniffing at her narcissi. "Oh, aren't these
flowers sweet! It was lovely of Mrs. Lynde to give them to me. I have no
hard feelings against Mrs. Lynde now. It gives you a lovely, comfortable
feeling to apologize and be forgiven, doesn't it? Aren't the stars bright
tonight? If you could live in a star, which one would you pick? I'd like
that lovely clear big one away over there above that dark hill."
"Anne, do hold your tongue." said Marilla, thoroughly worn out trying
to follow the gyrations of Anne's thoughts.
Anne said no more until they turned into their own lane. A little
gypsy wind came down it to meet them, laden with the spicy perfume of
young dew-wet ferns. Far up in the shadows a cheerful light gleamed out
through the trees from the kitchen at Green Gables. Anne suddenly came
close to Marilla and slipped her hand into the older woman's hard palm.
"It's lovely to be going home and know it's home," she said. "I love
Green Gables already, and I never loved any place before. No place ever
seemed like home. Oh, Marilla, I'm so happy. I could pray right now and
not find it a bit hard."
Something warm and pleasant welled up in Marilla's heart at touch of
that thin little hand in her own-a throb of the maternity she had missed,
perhaps. Its very unaccustomedness and sweetness disturbed her. She
hastened to restore her sensations to their normal calm by inculcating a
moral.
"If you'll be a good girl you'll always be happy, Anne. And you
should never find it hard to say your prayers."
"Saying one's prayers isn't exactly the same thing as praying," said
Anne meditatively. "But I'm going to imagine that I'm the wind that is
blowing up there in those tree tops. When I get tired of the trees I'll
imagine I'm gently waving down here in the ferns-and then I'll fly over to
Mrs. Lynde's garden and set the flowers dancing-and then I'll go with one
great swoop over the clover field-and then I'll blow over the Lake of
Shining Waters and ripple it all up into little sparkling waves. Oh,
there's so much scope for imagination in a wind! So I'll not talk any more
just now, Marilla."
"Thanks by to goodness for that," breathed Marilla in devout relief.

11. Anne's Impressions of Sunday-School

"Well, how do you like them?" said Marilla.
Anne was standing in the gable room, looking solemnly at three new
dresses spread out on the bed. One was of snuffy colored gingham which
Marilla had been tempted to buy from a peddler the preceding summer
because it looked so serviceable; one was of black-and-white checkered
sateen which she had picked up at a bargain counter in the winter; and one
was a stiff print of an ugly blue shade which she had purchased that week
at a Carmody store.
She had made them up herself, and they were all made alike-plain
skirts fulled tightly to plain waists, with sleeves as plain as waist and
skirt and tight as sleeves could be.
"I'll imagine that I like them," said Anne soberly.
"I don't want you to imagine it," said Marilla, offended. "Oh, I can
see you don't like the dresses! What is the matter with them? Aren't they
neat and clean and new?"
"Yes."
"Then why don't you like them?"
"They're-they're not-pretty," said Anne reluctantly.
"Pretty!" Marilla sniffed. "I didn't trouble my head about getting
pretty dresses for you. I don't believe in pampering vanity, Anne, I'll
tell you that right off. Those dresses are good, sensible, serviceable
dresses, without any frills or furbelows about them, and they're all
you'll get this summer. The brown gingham and the blue print will do you
for school when you begin to go. The sateen is for church and Sunday
school. I'll expect you to keep them neat and clean and not to tear them.
I should think you'd be grateful to get most anything after those skimpy
wincey things you've been wearing."
"Oh, I AM grateful," protested Anne. "But I'd be ever so much
gratefuller if-if you'd made just one of them with puffed sleeves. Puffed
sleeves are so fashionable now. It would give me such a thrill, Marilla,
just to wear a dress with puffed sleeves."
"Well, you'll have to do without your thrill. I hadn't any material
to waste on puffed sleeves. I think they are ridiculous-looking things
anyhow. I prefer the plain, sensible ones."
"But I'd rather look ridiculous when everybody else does than plain
and sensible all by myself," persisted Anne mournfully.
"Trust you for that! Well, hang those dresses carefully up in your
closet, and then sit down and learn the Sunday school lesson. I got a
quarterly from Mr. Bell for you and you'll go to Sunday school tomorrow,"
said Marilla, disappearing downstairs in high dudgeon.
Anne clasped her hands and looked at the dresses.
"I did hope there would be a white one with puffed sleeves," she
whispered disconsolately. "I prayed for one, but I didn't much expect it
on that account. I didn't suppose God would have time to bother about a
little orphan girl's dress. I knew I'd just have to depend on Marilla for
it. Well, fortunately I can imagine that one of them is of snow-white
muslin with lovely lace frills and three-puffed sleeves."
The next morning warnings of a sick headache prevented Marilla from
going to Sunday-school with Anne.
"You'll have to go down and call for Mrs. Lynde, Anne." she said.
"She'll see that you get into the right class. Now, mind you behave
yourself properly. Stay to preaching afterwards and ask Mrs. Lynde to show
you our pew. Here's a cent for collection. Don't stare at people and don't
fidget. I shall expect you to tell me the text when you come home."
Anne started off irreproachable, arrayed in the stiff blackand-white
sateen, which, while decent as regards length and certainly not open to
the charge of skimpiness, contrived to emphasize every corner and angle of
her thin figure. Her hat was a little, flat, glossy, new sailor, the
extreme plainness of which had likewise much disappointed Anne, who had
permitted herself secret visions of ribbon and flowers. The latter,
however, were supplied before Anne reached the main road, for being
confronted halfway down the lane with a golden frenzy of windstirred
buttercups and a glory of wild roses, Anne promptly and liberally
garlanded her hat with a heavy wreath of them. Whatever other people might
have thought of the result it satisfied Anne, and she tripped gaily down
the road, holding her ruddy head with its decoration of pink and yellow
very proudly.
When she had reached Mrs. Lynde's house she found that lady gone.
Nothing daunted Anne proceeded onward to the church alone. In the porch
she found a crowd of little girls, all more or less gaily attired in
whites and blues and pinks, and all staring with curious eyes at this
stranger in their midst, with her extraordinary head adornment. Avonlea
little girls had already heard queer stories about Anne. Mrs. Lynde said
she had an awful temper; Jerry Buote, the hired boy at Green Gables, said
she talked all the time to herself or to the trees and flowers like a
crazy girl. They looked at her and whispered to each other behind their
quarterlies. Nobody made any friendly advances, then or later when
theopening exercises were over and Anne found herself in Miss Rogerson's
class.
Miss Rogerson was a middle-aged lady who had taught a Sunday school
class for twenty years. Her method of teaching was to ask the printed
questions from the quarterly and look sternly over its edge at the
particular little girl she thought ought to answer the question. She
looked very often at Anne, and Anne, thanks to Marilla's drilling,
answered promptly; but it may be questioned if she understood very much
about either question or answer.
She did not think she liked Miss Rogerson, and she felt very
miserable; every other little girl in the class had puffed sleeves. Anne
felt that life was really not worth living without puffed sleeves.
"Well, how did you like Sunday school?" Marilla wanted to know when
Anne came home. Her wreath having faded, Anne had discarded it in the
lane, so Marilla was spared the knowledge of that for a time.
"I didn't like it a bit. It was horrid."
"Anne Shirley!" said Marilla rebukingly.
Anne sat down on the rocker with a long sigh, kissed one of Bonny's
leaves, and waved her hand to a blossoming fuchsia.
"They might have been lonesome while I was away," she explained. "And
now about the Sunday school. I behaved well, just as you told me. Mrs.
Lynde was gone, but I went right on myself. I went into the church, with a
lot of other little girls, and I sat in the corner of a pew by the window
while the opening exercises went on. Mr. Bell made an awfully long prayer.
I would have been dreadfully tired before he got through if I hadn't been
sitting by that window. But it looked right out on the Lake of Shining
Waters, so I just gazed at that and imagined all sorts of splendid things."
"You shouldn't have done anything of the sort. You should have
listened to Mr. Bell."
"But he wasn't talking to me," protested Anne. "He was talking to God
and he didn't seem to be very much interested in it, either. I think he
thought God was too far off though. There was long row of white birches
hanging over the lake and the sunshine fell down through them, 'way, 'way
down, deep into the water. Oh, Marilla, it was like a beautiful dream! It
game me a thrill and I just said, `Thank you for it, God,' two or three
times."
"Not out loud, I hope," said Marilla anxiously.
"Oh, no, just under my breath. Well, Mr. Bell did get through at last
and they told me to go into the classroom with Miss Rogerson's class.
There were nine other girls in it. They all had puffed sleeves. I tried to
imagine mine were puffed, too, but I couldn't. Why couldn't I? It was as
easy as could be to imagine they were puffed when I was alone in the east
gable, but it was awfully hard there among the others who had really truly
puffs."
"You shouldn't have been thinking about your sleeves in Sunday
school. You should have been attending to the lesson. I hope you knew it."
"Oh, yes; and I answered a lot of questions. Miss Rogerson asked ever
so many. I don't think it was fair for her to do all the asking. There wee
lots I wanted to ask her, but I didn't like to because I didn't think she
was a kindred spirit. Then all the other little girls recited a
paraphrase. She asked me if I knew any. I told her I didn't, but I could
recite, `The Dog at His Master's Grave' if she liked. That's in the Third
Royal Reader. It isn't a really truly religious piece of poetry, but it's
so sad and melancholy that it might as well be. She said it wouldn't do
and she told me to learn the nineteenth paraphrase for next Sunday. I read
it over in church afterwards and it's splendid. There are two lines in
particular that just thrill me.

"`Quick as the slaughtered squadrons fell
In Midian's evil day.'

I don't know what `squadrons' means nor `Midian,' either, but it
sounds SO tragical. I can hardly wait until next Sunday to recite it. I'll
practice it all the week. After Sunday school I asked Miss
Rogerson-because Mrs. Lynde was too far away-to show me your pew. I sat
just as still as I could and the text was Revelations, third chapter,
second and third verses. It was a very long text. If I was a minister I'd
pick the short, snappy ones. The sermon was awfully long, too. I suppose
the minister had to match it to the text. I didn't think he was a bit
interesting. The trouble with him seems to be that he hasn't enough
imagination. I didn't listen to him very much. I just let my thoughts run
and I thought of the most surprising things."
Marilla felt helplessly that all this should be sternly reproved, but
she was hampered by the undeniable fact that some of the things Anne had
said, especially about the minister's sermons and Mr. Bell's prayers, were
what she herself had really thought deep down in her heart for years, but
had never given expression to. It almost seemed to her that those secret,
unuttered, critical thoughts had suddenly taken visible and accusing shape
and form in the person of this outspoken morsel of neglected humanity.

12. A Solemn Vow and Promise

It was not until the next Friday that Marilla heard the story of the
flower-wreathed hat. She came home from Mrs. Lynde's and called Anne to
account.
"Anne, Mrs. Rachel says you went to church last Sunday with your hat
rigged out ridiculous with roses and buttercups. What on earth put you up
to such a caper? A pretty-looking object you must have been!"
"Oh. I know pink and yellow aren't becoming to me," began Anne.
"Becoming fiddlesticks! It was putting flowers on your hat at all, no
matter what color they were, that was ridiculous. You are the most
aggravating child!"
"I don't see why it's any more ridiculous to wear flowers on your hat
than on your dress," protested Anne. "Lots of little girls there had
bouquets pinned on their dresses. What's the difference?"
Marilla was not to be drawn from the safe concrete into dubious paths
of the abstract.
"Don't answer me back like that, Anne. It was very silly of you to do
such a thing. Never let me catch you at such a trick again. Mrs. Rachel
says she thought she would sink through the floor when she come in all
rigged out like that. She couldn't get near enough to tell you to take
them off till it was too late. She says people talked about it something
dreadful. Of course they would think I had no better sense than to let you
go decked out like that."
"Oh, I'm so sorry," said Anne, tears welling into her eyes. "I never
thought you'd mind. The roses and buttercups were so sweet and pretty I
thought they'd look lovely on my hat. Lots of the little girls had
artificial flowers on their hats. I'm afraid I'm going to be a dreadful
trial to you. Maybe you'd better send me back to the asylum. That would be
terrible; I don't think I could endure it; most likely I would go into
consumption; I'm so thin as it is, you see. But that would be better than
being a trial to you."
"Nonsense," said Marilla, vexed at herself for having made the child
cry. "I don't want to send you back to the asylum, I'm sure. All I want is
that you should behave like other little girls and not make yourself
ridiculous. Don't cry any more. I've got some news for you. Diana Barry
came home this afternoon. I'm going up to see if I can borrow a skirt
pattern from Mrs. Barry, and if you like you can come with me and get
acquainted with Diana."
Anne rose to her feet, with clasped hands, the tears still glistening
on her cheeks; the dish towel she had been hemming slipped unheeded to the
floor.
"Oh, Marilla, I'm frightened-now that it has come I'm actually
frightened. What if she shouldn't like me! It would be the most tragical
disappointment of my life."
"Now, don't get into a fluster. And I do wish you wouldn't use such
long words. It sounds so funny in a little girl. I guess Diana'll like you
well enough. It's her mother you've got to reckon with. If she doesn't
like you it won't matter how much Diana does. If she has heard about your
outburst to Mrs. Lynde and going to church with buttercups round your hat
I don't know what she'll think of you. You must be polite and well
behaved, and don't make any of your startling speeches. For pity's sake,
if the child isn't actually trembling!"
Anne WAS trembling. Her face was pale and tense.
"Oh, Marilla, you'd be excited, too, if you were going to meet a
little girl you hoped to be your bosom friend and whose mother mightn't
like you," she said as she hastened to get her hat.
They went over to Orchard Slope by the short cut across the brook and
up the firry hill grove. Mrs. Barry came to the kitchen door in answer to
Marilla's knock. She was a tall black-eyed, black-haired woman, with a
very resolute mouth. She had the reputation of being very strict with her
children.
"How do you do, Marilla?" she said cordially. "Come in. And this is
the little girl you have adopted, I suppose?"
"Yes, this is Anne Shirley," said Marilla.
"Spelled with an E," gasped Anne, who, tremulous and excited as she
was, was determined there should be no misunderstanding on that important
point.
Mrs. Barry, not hearing or not comprehending, merely shook hands and
said kindly:
"How are you?"
"I am well in body although considerable rumpled up in spirit, thank
you ma'am," said Anne gravely. Then aside to Marilla in an audible
whisper, "There wasn't anything startling in that, was there, Marilla?"
Diana was sitting on the sofa, reading a book which she dropped when
the callers entered. She was a very pretty little girl, with her mother's
black eyes and hair, and rosy cheeks, and the merry expression which was
her inheritance from her father.
"This is my little girl Diana," said Mrs. Barry. "Diana, you might
take Anne out into the garden and show her your flowers. It will be better
for you than straining your eyes over that book. She reads entirely too
much-" this to Marilla as the little girls went out-"and I can't prevent
her, for her father aids and abets her. She's always poring over a book.
I'm glad she has the prospect of a playmateperhaps it will take her more
out-of-doors."
Outside in the garden, which was full of mellow sunset light
streaming through the dark old firs to the west of it, stood Anne and
Diana, gazing bashfully at one another over a clump of gorgeous tiger
lilies.
The Barry garden was a bowery wilderness of flowers which would have
delighted Anne's heart at any time less fraught with destiny. It was
encircled by huge old willows and tall firs, beneath which flourished
flowers that loved the shade. Prim, right-angled paths neatly bordered
with clamshells, intersected it like moist red ribbons and in the beds
between old-fashioned flowers ran riot. There were rosy bleeding-hearts
and great splendid crimson peonies; white, fragrant narcissi and thorny,
sweet Scotch roses; pink and blue and white columbines and lilac-tinted
Bouncing Bets; clumps of southernwood and ribbon grass and mint; purple
Adam-and-Eve, daffodils, and masses of sweet clover white with its
delicate, fragrant, feathery sprays; scarlet lightning that shot its fiery
lances over prim white musk-flowers; a garden it was where sunshine
lingered and bees hummed, and winds, beguiled into loitering, purred and
rustled.
"Oh, Diana," said Anne at last, clasping her hands and speaking
almost in a whisper, "do you think-oh, do you think you can like me a
little-enough to be my bosom friend?"
Diana laughed. Diana always laughed before she spoke.
"Why, I guess so," she said frankly. "I'm awfully glad you've come to
live at Green Gables. It will be jolly to have somebody to play with.
There isn't any other girl who lives near enough to play with, and I've no
sisters big enough."
"Will you swear to be my friend forever and ever?" demanded Anne
eagerly.
Diana looked shocked.
"Why it's dreadfully wicked to swear," she said rebukingly.
"Oh no, not my kind of swearing. There are two kinds, you know."
"I never heard of but one kind," said Diana doubtfully.
"There really is another. Oh, it isn't wicked at all. It just means
vowing and promising solemnly."
"Well, I don't mind doing that," agreed Diana, relieved. "How do you
do it?"
"We must join hands-so," said Anne gravely. "It ought to be over
running water. We'll just imagine this path is running water. I'll repeat
the oath first. I solemnly swear to be faithful to my bosom friend, Diana
Barry, as long as the sun and moon shall endure. Now you say it and put my
name in."
Diana repeated the "oath" with a laugh fore and aft. Then she said:
"You're a queer girl, Anne. I heard before that you were queer. But I
believe I'm going to like you real well."
When Marilla and Anne went home Diana went with them as for as the
log bridge. The two little girls walked with their arms about each other.
At the brook they parted with many promises to spend the next afternoon
together.
"Well, did you find Diana a kindred spirit?" asked Marilla as they
went up through the garden of Green Gables.
"Oh yes," sighed Anne, blissfully unconscious of any sarcasm on
Marilla's part. "Oh Marilla, I'm the happiest girl on Prince Edward Island
this very moment. I assure you I'll say my prayers with a right good-will
tonight. Diana and I are going to build a playhouse in Mr. William Bell's
birch grove tomorrow. Can I have those broken pieces of china that are out
in the woodshed? Diana's birthday is in February and mine is in March.
Don't you think that is a very strange coincidence? Diana is going to lend
me a book to read. She says it's perfectly splendid and tremendously
exciting. She's going to show me a place back in the woods where rice
lilies grow. Don't you think Diana has got very soulful eyes? I wish I had
soulful eyes. Diana is going to teach me to sing a song called `Nelly in
the Hazel Dell.' She's going to give me a picture to put up in my room;
it's a perfectly beautiful picture, she says-a lovely lady in a pale blue
silk dress. A sewing machine agent gave it to her. I wish I had something
to give Diana. I'm an inch taller than Diana, but she is ever so much
fatter; she says she'd like to be thin because it's so much more graceful,
but I'm afraid she only said it to soothe my feelings. We're going to the
shore some day to gather shells. We have agreed to call the spring down by
the log bridge the Dryad's Bubble. Isn't that a perfectly elegant name? I
read a story once about a spring called that. A dryad is sort of a
grown-up fairy, I think."
"Well, all I hope is you won't talk Diana to death," said Marilla.
"But remember this in all your planning, Anne. You're not going to play
all the time nor most of it. You'll have your work to do and it'll have to
be done first."
Anne's cup of happiness was full, and Matthew caused it to overflow.
He had just got home from a trip to the store at Carmody, and he
sheepishly produced a small parcel from his pocket and handed it to Anne,
with a deprecatory look at Marilla.
"I heard you say you liked chocolate sweeties, so I got you some," he
said.
"Humph," sniffed Marilla. "It'll ruin her teeth and stomach. There,
there, child, don't look so dismal. You can eat those, since Matthew has
gone and got them. He'd better have brought you peppermints. They're
wholesomer. Don't sicken yourself eating all them at once now."
"Oh, no, indeed, I won't," said Anne eagerly. "I'll just eat one
tonight, Marilla. And I can give Diana half of them, can't I? The other
half will taste twice as sweet to me if I give some to her. It's
delightful to think I have something to give her."
"I will say it for the child," said Marilla when Anne had gone to her
gable, "she isn't stingy. I'm glad, for of all faults I detest stinginess
in a child. Dear me, it's only three weeks since she came, and it seems as
if she'd been here always. I can't imagine the place without her. Now,
don't be looking I told-you-so, Matthew. That's bad enough in a woman, but
it isn't to be endured in a man. I'm perfectly willing to own up that I'm
glad I consented to keep the child and that I'm getting fond of her, but
don't you rub it in, Matthew Cuthbert."

13. The Delights of Anticipation

"It's time Anne was in to do her sewing," said Marilla, glancing at
the clock and then out into the yellow August afternoon where everything
drowsed in the heat. "She stayed playing with Diana more than half an hour
more'n I gave her leave to; and now she's perched out there on the
woodpile talking to Matthew, nineteen to the dozen, when she knows
perfectly well she ought to be at her work. And of course he's listening
to her like a perfect ninny. I never saw such an infatuated man. The more
she talks and the odder the things she says, the more he's delighted
evidently. Anne Shirley, you come right in here this minute, do you hear
me!"
A series of staccato taps on the west window brought Anne flying in
from the yard, eyes shining, cheeks faintly flushed with pink, unbraided
hair streaming behind her in a torrent of brightness.
"Oh, Marilla," she exclaimed breathlessly, "there's going to be a
Sunday-school picnic next week-in Mr. Harmon Andrews's field, right near
the lake of Shining Waters. And Mrs. Superintendent Bell and Mrs. Rachel
Lynde are going to make ice cream-think of it, Marilla-ICE CREAM! And, oh,
Marilla, can I go to it?"
"Just look at the clock, if you please, Anne. What time did I tell
you to come in?"
"Two o'clock-but isn't it splendid about the picnic, Marilla? Please
can I go? Oh, I've never been to a picnic-I've dreamed of picnics, but
I've never-"
"Yes, I told you to come at two o'clock. And it's a quarter to three.
I'd like to know why you didn't obey me, Anne."
"Why, I meant to, Marilla, as much as could be. But you have no idea
how fascinating Idlewild is. And then, of course, I had to tell Matthew
about the picnic. Matthew is such a sympathetic listener. Please can I go?"
"You'll have to learn to resist the fascination of
Idlewhateveryou-call-it. When I tell you to come in at a certain time I
mean that time and not half an hour later. And you needn't stop to
discourse with sympathetic listeners on your way, either. As for the
picnic, of course you can go. You're a Sunday-school scholar, and it's not
likely I'd refuse to let you go when all the other little girls are going."
"But-but," faltered Anne, "Diana says that everybody must take a
basket of things to eat. I can't cook, as you know, Marilla, and-and-I
don't mind going to a picnic without puffed sleeves so much, but I'd feel
terribly humiliated if I had to go without a basket. It's been preying on
my mind ever since Diana told me."
"Well, it needn't prey any longer. I'll bake you a basket."
"Oh, you dear good Marilla. Oh, you are so kind to me. Oh, I'm so
much obliged to you."
Getting through with her "ohs" Anne cast herself into Marilla's arms
and rapturously kissed her sallow cheek. It was the first time in her
whole life that childish lips had voluntarily touched Marilla's face.
Again that sudden sensation of startling sweetness thrilled her. She was
secretly vastly pleased at Anne's impulsive caress, which was probably the
reason why she said brusquely:
"There, there, never mind your kissing nonsense. I'd sooner see you
doing strictly as you're told. As for cooking, I mean to begin giving you
lessons in that some of these days. But you're so featherbrained, Anne,
I've been waiting to see if you'd sober down a little and learn to be
steady before I begin. You've got to keep your wits about you in cooking
and not stop in the middle of things to let your thoughts rove all over
creation. Now, get out your patchwork and have your square done before
teatime."
"I do NOT like patchwork," said Anne dolefully, hunting out her
workbasket and sitting down before a little heap of red and white diamonds
with a sigh. "I think some kinds of sewing would be nice; but there's no
scope for imagination in patchwork. It's just one little seam after
another and you never seem to be getting anywhere. But of course I'd
rather be Anne of Green Gables sewing patchwork than Anne of any other
place with nothing to do but play. I wish time went as quick sewing
patches as it does when I'm playing with Diana, though. Oh, we do have
such elegant times, Marilla. I have to furnish most of the imagination,
but I'm well able to do that. Diana is simply perfect in every other way.
You know that little piece of land across the brook that runs up between
our farm and Mr. Barry's. It belongs to Mr. William Bell, and right in the
corner there is a little ring of white birch trees-the most romantic spot,
Marilla. Diana and I have our playhouse there. We call it Idlewild. Isn't
that a poetical name? I assure you it took me some time to think it out. I
stayed awake nearly a whole night before I invented it. Then, just as I
was dropping off to sleep, it came like an inspiration. Diana was
ENRAPTURED when she heard it. We have got our house fixed up elegantly.
You must come and see it, Marilla-won't you? We have great big stones, all
covered with moss, for seats, and boards from tree to tree for shelves.
And we have all our dishes on them. Of course, they're all broken but it's
the easiest thing in the world to imagine that they are whole. There's a
piece of a plate with a spray of red and yellow ivy on it that is
especially beautiful. We keep it in the parlor and we have the fairy glass
there, too. The fairy glass is as lovely as a dream. Diana found it out in
the woods behind their chicken house. It's all full of rainbows-just
little young rainbows that haven't grown big yet-and Diana's mother told
her it was broken off a hanging lamp they once had. But it's nice to
imagine the fairies lost it one night when they had a ball, so we call it
the fairy glass. Matthew is going to make us a table. Oh, we have named
that little round pool over in Mr. Barry's field Willowmere. I got that
name out of the book Diana lent me. That was a thrilling book, Marilla.
The heroine had five lovers. I'd be satisfied with one, wouldn't you? She
was very handsome and she went through great tribulations. She could faint
as easy as anything. I'd love to be able to faint, wouldn't you, Marilla?
It's so romantic. But I'm really very healthy for all I'm so thin. I
believe I'm getting fatter, though. Don't you think I am? I look at my
elbows every morning when I get up to see if any dimples are coming. Diana
is having a new dress made with elbow sleeves. She is going to wear it to
the picnic. Oh, I do hope it will be fine next Wednesday. I don't feel
that I could endure the disappointment if anything happened to prevent me
from getting to the picnic. I suppose I'd live through it, but I'm certain
it would be a lifelong sorrow. It wouldn't matter if I got to a hundred
picnics in after years; they wouldn't make up for missing this one.
They're going to have boats on the Lake of Shining Waters-and ice cream,
as I told you. I have never tasted ice cream. Diana tried to explain what
it was like, but I guess ice cream is one of those things that are beyond
imagination."
"Anne, you have talked even on for ten minutes by the clock," said
Marilla. "Now, just for curiosity's sake, see if you can hold your tongue
for the same length of time."
Anne held her tongue as desired. But for the rest of the week she
talked picnic and thought picnic and dreamed picnic. On Saturday it rained
and she worked herself up into such a frantic state lest it should keep on
raining until and over Wednesday that Marilla made her sew an extra
patchwork square by way of steadying her nerves.
On Sunday Anne confided to Marilla on the way home from church that
she grew actually cold all over with excitement when the minister
announced the picnic from the pulpit.
"Such a thrill as went up and down my back, Marilla! I don't think
I'd ever really believed until then that there was honestly going to be a
picnic. I couldn't help fearing I'd only imagined it. But when a minister
says a thing in the pulpit you just have to believe it."
"You set your heart too much on things, Anne," said Marilla, with a
sigh. "I'm afraid there'll be a great many disappointments in store for
you through life."
"Oh, Marilla, looking forward to things is half the pleasure of them,"
exclaimed Anne. "You mayn't get the things themselves; but nothing can
prevent you from having the fun of looking forward to them. Mrs. Lynde
says, `Blessed are they who expect nothing for they shall not be
disappointed.' But I think it would be worse to expect nothing than to be
disappointed."
Marilla wore her amethyst brooch to church that day as usual. Marilla
always wore her amethyst brooch to church. She would have thought it
rather sacrilegious to leave it off-as bad as forgetting her Bible or her
collection dime. That amethyst brooch was Marilla's most treasured
possession. A seafaring uncle had given it to her mother who in turn had
bequeathed it to Marilla. It was an old-fashioned oval, containing a braid
of her mother's hair, surrounded by a border of very fine amethysts.
Marilla knew too little about precious stones to realize how fine the
amethysts actually were; but she thought them very beautiful and was
always pleasantly conscious of their violet shimmer at her throat, above
her good brown satin dress, even although she could not see it.
Anne had been smitten with delighted admiration when she first saw
that brooch.
"Oh, Marilla, it's a perfectly elegant brooch. I don't know how you
can pay attention to the sermon or the prayers when you have it on. I
couldn't, I know. I think amethysts are just sweet. They are what I used
to think diamonds were like. Long ago, before I had ever seen a diamond, I
read about them and I tried to imagine what they would be like. I thought
they would be lovely glimmering purple stones. When I saw a real diamond
in a lady's ring one day I was so disappointed I cried. Of course, it was
very lovely but it wasn't my idea of a diamond. Will you let me hold the
brooch for one minute, Marilla? Do you think amethysts can be the souls of
good violets?"

14. Anne's Confession

ON the Monday evening before the picnic Marilla came down from her
room with a troubled face.
"Anne," she said to that small personage, who was shelling peas by
the spotless table and singing, "Nelly of the Hazel Dell" with a vigor and
expression that did credit to Diana's teaching, "did you see anything of
my amethyst brooch? I thought I stuck it in my pincushion when I came home
from church yesterday evening, but I can't find it anywhere."
"I-I saw it this afternoon when you were away at the Aid Society,"
said Anne, a little slowly. "I was passing your door when I saw it on the
cushion, so I went in to look at it."
"Did you touch it?" said Marilla sternly.
"Y-e-e-s," admitted Anne, "I took it up and I pinned it on my breast
just to see how it would look."
"You had no business to do anything of the sort. It's very wrong in a
little girl to meddle. You shouldn't have gone into my room in the first
place and you shouldn't have touched a brooch that didn't belong to you in
the second. Where did you put it?"
"Oh, I put it back on the bureau. I hadn't it on a minute. Truly, I
didn't mean to meddle, Marilla. I didn't think about its being wrong to go
in and try on the brooch; but I see now that it was and I'll never do it
again. That's one good thing about me. I never do the same naughty thing
twice."
"You didn't put it back," said Marilla. "That brooch isn't anywhere
on the bureau. You've taken it out or something, Anne."
"I did put it back," said Anne quickly-pertly, Marilla thought. "I
don't just remember whether I stuck it on the pincushion or laid it in the
china tray. But I'm perfectly certain I put it back."
"I'll go and have another look," said Marilla, determining to be
just. "If you put that brooch back it's there still. If it isn't I'll know
you didn't, that's all!"
Marilla went to her room and made a thorough search, not only over
the bureau but in every other place she thought the brooch might possibly
be. It was not to be found and she returned to the kitchen.
"Anne, the brooch is gone. By your own admission you were the last
person to handle it. Now, what have you done with it? Tell me the truth at
once. Did you take it out and lose it?"
"No, I didn't," said Anne solemnly, meeting Marilla's angry gaze
squarely. "I never took the brooch out of your room and that is the truth,
if I was to be led to the block for it-although I'm not very certain what
a block is. So there, Marilla."
Anne's "so there" was only intended to emphasize her assertion, but
Marilla took it as a display of defiance.
"I believe you are telling me a falsehood, Anne," she said sharply.
"I know you are. There now, don't say anything more unless you are
prepared to tell the whole truth. Go to your room and stay there until you
are ready to confess."
"Will I take the peas with me?" said Anne meekly.
"No, I'll finish shelling them myself. Do as I bid you."
When Anne had gone Marilla went about her evening tasks in a very
disturbed state of mind. She was worried about her valuable brooch. What
if Anne had lost it? And how wicked of the child to deny having taken it,
when anybody could see she must have! With such an innocent face, too!
"I don't know what I wouldn't sooner have had happen," thought
Marilla, as she nervously shelled the peas. "Of course, I don't suppose
she meant to steal it or anything like that. She's just taken it to play
with or help along that imagination of hers. She must have taken it,
that's clear, for there hasn't been a soul in that room since she was in
it, by her own story, until I went up tonight. And the brooch is gone,
there's nothing surer. I suppose she has lost it and is afraid to own up
for fear she'll be punished. It's a dreadful thing to think she tells
falsehoods. It's a far worse thing than her fit of temper. It's a fearful
responsibility to have a child in your house you can't trust. Slyness and
untruthfulness-that's what she has displayed. I declare I feel worse about
that than about the brooch. If she'd only have told the truth about it I
wouldn't mind so much."
Marilla went to her room at intervals all through the evening and
searched for the brooch, without finding it. A bedtime visit to the east
gable produced no result. Anne persisted in denying that she knew anything
about the brooch but Marilla was only the more firmly convinced that she
did.
She told Matthew the story the next morning. Matthew was confounded
and puzzled; he could not so quickly lose faith in Anne but he had to
admit that circ*mstances were against her.
"You're sure it hasn't fell down behind the bureau?" was the only
suggestion he could offer.
"I've moved the bureau and I've taken out the drawers and I've looked
in every crack and cranny" was Marilla's positive answer. "The brooch is
gone and that child has taken it and lied about it. That's the plain, ugly
truth, Matthew Cuthbert, and we might as well look it in the face."
"Well now, what are you going to do about it?" Matthew asked
forlornly, feeling secretly thankful that Marilla and not he had to deal
with the situation. He felt no desire to put his oar in this time.
"She'll stay in her room until she confesses," said Marilla grimly,
remembering the success of this method in the former case. "Then we'll
see. Perhaps we'll be able to find the brooch if she'll only tell where
she took it; but in any case she'll have to be severely punished, Matthew."
"Well now, you'll have to punish her," said Matthew, reaching for his
hat. "I've nothing to do with it, remember. You warned me off yourself."
Marilla felt deserted by everyone. She could not even go to Mrs.
Lynde for advice. She went up to the east gable with a very serious face
and left it with a face more serious still. Anne steadfastly refused to
confess. She persisted in asserting that she had not taken the brooch. The
child had evidently been crying and Marilla felt a pang of pity which she
sternly repressed. By night she was, as she expressed it, "beat out."
"You'll stay in this room until you confess, Anne. You can make up
your mind to that," she said firmly.
"But the picnic is tomorrow, Marilla," cried Anne. "You won't keep me
from going to that, will you? You'll just let me out for the afternoon,
won't you? Then I'll stay here as long as you like AFTERWARDS cheerfully.
But I MUST go to the picnic."
"You'll not go to picnics nor anywhere else until you've confessed,
Anne."
"Oh, Marilla," gasped Anne.
But Marilla had gone out and shut the door.
Wednesday morning dawned as bright and fair as if expressly made to
order for the picnic. Birds sang around Green Gables; the Madonna lilies
in the garden sent out whiffs of perfume that entered in on viewless winds
at every door and window, and wandered through halls and rooms like
spirits of benediction. The birches in the hollow waved joyful hands as if
watching for Anne's usual morning greeting from the east gable. But Anne
was not at her window. When Marilla took her breakfast up to her she found
the child sitting primly on her bed, pale and resolute, with tight-shut
lips and gleaming eyes.
"Marilla, I'm ready to confess."
"Ah!" Marilla laid down her tray. Once again her method had
succeeded; but her success was very bitter to her. "Let me hear what you
have to say then, Anne."
"I took the amethyst brooch," said Anne, as if repeating a lesson she
had learned. "I took it just as you said. I didn't mean to take it when I
went in. But it did look so beautiful, Marilla, when I pinned it on my
breast that I was overcome by an irresistible temptation. I imagined how
perfectly thrilling it would be to take it to Idlewild and play I was the
Lady Cordelia Fitzgerald. It would be so much easier to imagine I was the
Lady Cordelia if I had a real amethyst brooch on. Diana and I make
necklaces of roseberries but what are roseberries compared to amethysts?
So I took the brooch. I thought I could put it back before you came home.
I went all the way around by the road to lengthen out the time. When I was
going over the bridge across the Lake of Shining Waters I took the brooch
off to have another look at it. Oh, how it did shine in the sunlight! And
then, when I was leaning over the bridge, it just slipped through my
fingers-so-and went down-down-down, all purplysparkling, and sank
forevermore beneath the Lake of Shining Waters. And that's the best I can
do at confessing, Marilla."
Marilla felt hot anger surge up into her heart again. This child had
taken and lost her treasured amethyst brooch and now sat there calmly
reciting the details thereof without the least apparent compunction or
repentance.
"Anne, this is terrible," she said, trying to speak calmly. "You are
the very wickedest girl I ever heard of"
"Yes, I suppose I am," agreed Anne tranquilly. "And I know I'll have
to be punished. It'll be your duty to punish me, Marilla. Won't you please
get it over right off because I'd like to go to the picnic with nothing on
my mind."
"Picnic, indeed! You'll go to no picnic today, Anne Shirley. That
shall be your punishment. And it isn't half severe enough either for what
you've done!"
"Not go to the picnic!" Anne sprang to her feet and clutched
Marilla's hand. "But you PROMISED me I might! Oh, Marilla, I must go to
the picnic. That was why I confessed. Punish me any way you like but that.
Oh, Marilla, please, please, let me go to the picnic. Think of the ice
cream! For anything you know I may never have a chance to taste ice cream
again."
Marilla disengaged Anne's clinging hands stonily.
"You needn't plead, Anne. You are not going to the picnic and that's
final. No, not a word."
Anne realized that Marilla was not to be moved. She clasped her hands
together, gave a piercing shriek, and then flung herself face downward on
the bed, crying and writhing in an utter abandonment of disappointment and
despair.
"For the land's sake!" gasped Marilla, hastening from the room. "I
believe the child is crazy. No child in her senses would behave as she
does. If she isn't she's utterly bad. Oh dear, I'm afraid Rachel was right
from the first. But I've put my hand to the plow and I won't look back."
That was a dismal morning. Marilla worked fiercely and scrubbed the
porch floor and the dairy shelves when she could find nothing else to do.
Neither the shelves nor the porch needed it-but Marilla did. Then she went
out and raked the yard.
When dinner was ready she went to the stairs and called Anne. A
tear-stained face appeared, looking tragically over the banisters.
"Come down to your dinner, Anne."
"I don't want any dinner, Marilla," said Anne, sobbingly. "I couldn't
eat anything. My heart is broken. You'll feel remorse of conscience
someday, I expect, for breaking it, Marilla, but I forgive you. Remember
when the time comes that I forgive you. But please don't ask me to eat
anything, especially boiled pork and greens. Boiled pork and greens are so
unromantic when one is in affliction."
Exasperated, Marilla returned to the kitchen and poured out her tale
of woe to Matthew, who, between his sense of justice and his unlawful
sympathy with Anne, was a miserable man.
"Well now, she shouldn't have taken the brooch, Marilla, or told
stories about it," he admitted, mournfuly surveying his plateful of
unromantic pork and greens as if he, like Anne, thought it a food unsuited
to crises of feeling, "but she's such a little thing-such an interesting
little thing. Don't you think it's pretty rough not to let her go to the
picnic when she's so set on it?"
"Matthew Cuthbert, I'm amazed at you. I think I've let her off
entirely too easy. And she doesn't appear to realize how wicked she's been
at all-that's what worries me most. If she'd really felt sorry it wouldn't
be so bad. And you don't seem to realize it, neither; you're making
excuses for her all the time to yourself-I can see that."
"Well now, she's such a little thing," feebly reiterated Matthew.
"And there should be allowances made, Marilla. You know she's never had
any bringing up."
"Well, she's having it now" retorted Marilla.
The retort silenced Matthew if it did not convince him. That dinner
was a very dismal meal. The only cheerful thing about it was Jerry Buote,
the hired boy, and Marilla resented his cheerfulness as a personal insult.
When her dishes were washed and her bread sponge set and her hens fed
Marilla remembered that she had noticed a small rent in her best black
lace shawl when she had taken it off on Monday afternoon on returning from
the Ladies' Aid.
She would go and mend it. The shawl was in a box in her trunk. As
Marilla lifted it out, the sunlight, falling through the vines that
clustered thickly about the window, struck upon something caught in the
shawl-something that glittered and sparkled in facets of violet light.
Marilla snatched at it with a gasp. It was the amethyst brooch, hanging to
a thread of the lace by its catch!
"Dear life and heart," said Marilla blankly, "what does this mean?
Here's my brooch safe and sound that I thought was at the bottom of
Barry's pond. Whatever did that girl mean by saying she took it and lost
it? I declare I believe Green Gables is bewitched. I remember now that
when I took off my shawl Monday afternoon I laid it on the bureau for a
minute. I suppose the brooch got caught in it somehow. Well!"
Marilla betook herself to the east gable, brooch in hand. Anne had
cried herself out and was sitting dejectedly by the window.
"Anne Shirley," said Marilla solemnly, "I've just found my brooch
hanging to my black lace shawl. Now I want to know what that rigmarole you
told me this morning meant."
"Why, you said you'd keep me here until I confessed," returned Anne
wearily, "and so I decided to confess because I was bound to get to the
picnic. I thought out a confession last night after I went to bed and made
it as interesting as I could. And I said it over and over so that I
wouldn't forget it. But you wouldn't let me go to the picnic after all, so
all my trouble was wasted."
Marilla had to laugh in spite of herself. But her conscience pricked
her.
"Anne, you do beat all! But I was wrong-I see that now. I shouldn't
have doubted your word when I'd never known you to tell a story. Of
course, it wasn't right for you to confess to a thing you hadn't done-it
was very wrong to do so. But I drove you to it. So if you'll forgive me,
Anne, I'll forgive you and we'll start square again. And now get yourself
ready for the picnic."
Anne flew up like a rocket.
"Oh, Marilla, isn't it too late?"
"No, it's only two o'clock. They won't be more than well gathered yet
and it'll be an hour before they have tea. Wash your face and comb your
hair and put on your gingham. I'll fill a basket for you. There's plenty
of stuff baked in the house. And I'll get Jerry to hitch up the sorrel and
drive you down to the picnic ground."
"Oh, Marilla," exclaimed Anne, flying to the washstand. "Five minutes
ago I was so miserable I was wishing I'd never been born and now I
wouldn't change places with an angel!"
That night a thoroughly happy, completely tired-out Anne returned to
Green Gables in a state of beatification impossible to describe.
"Oh, Marilla, I've had a perfectly scrumptious time. Scrumptious is a
new word I learned today. I heard Mary Alice Bell use it. Isn't it very
expressive? Everything was lovely. We had a splendid tea and then Mr.
Harmon Andrews took us all for a row on the Lake of Shining Waters-six of
us at a time. And Jane Andrews nearly fell overboard. She was leaning out
to pick water lilies and if Mr. Andrews hadn't caught her by her sash just
in the nick of time she'd fallen in and prob'ly been drowned. I wish it
had been me. It would have been such a romantic experience to have been
nearly drowned. It would be such a thrilling tale to tell. And we had the
ice cream. Words fail me to describe that ice cream. Marilla, I assure you
it was sublime."
That evening Marilla told the whole story to Matthew over her
stocking basket.
"I'm willing to own up that I made a mistake," she concluded
candidly, "but I've learned a lesson. I have to laugh when I think of
Anne's `confession,' although I suppose I shouldn't for it really was a
falsehood. But it doesn't seem as bad as the other would have been,
somehow, and anyhow I'm responsible for it. That child is hard to
understand in some respects. But I believe she'll turn out all right yet.
And there's one thing certain, no house will ever be dull that she's in."

15. A Tempest in the School Teapot

"What a splendid day!" said Anne, drawing a long breath. "Isn't it
good just to be alive on a day like this? I pity the people who aren't
born yet for missing it. They may have good days, of course, but they can
never have this one. And it's splendider still to have such a lovely way
to go to school by, isn't it?"
"It's a lot nicer than going round by the road; that is so dusty and
hot," said Diana practically, peeping into her dinner basket and mentally
calculating if the three juicy, toothsome, raspberry tarts reposing there
were divided among ten girls how many bites each girl would have.
The little girls of Avonlea school always pooled their lunches, and
to eat three raspberry tarts all alone or even to share them only with
one's best chum would have forever and ever branded as "awful mean" the
girl who did it. And yet, when the tarts were divided among ten girls you
just got enough to tantalize you.
The way Anne and Diana went to school was a pretty one. Anne thought
those walks to and from school with Diana couldn't be improved upon even
by imagination. Going around by the main road would have been so
unromantic; but to go by Lover's Lane and Willowmere and Violet Vale and
the Birch Path was romantic, if ever anything was.
Lover's Lane opened out below the orchard at Green Gables and
stretched far up into the woods to the end of the Cuthbert farm. It was
the way by which the cows were taken to the back pasture and the wood
hauled home in winter. Anne had named it Lover's Lane before she had been
a month at Green Gables.
"Not that lovers ever really walk there," she explained to Marilla,
"but Diana and I are reading a perfectly magnificent book and there's a
Lover's Lane in it. So we want to have one, too. And it's a very pretty
name, don't you think? So romantic! We can't imagine the lovers into it,
you know. I like that lane because you can think out loud there without
people calling you crazy."
Anne, starting out alone in the morning, went down Lover's Lane as
far as the brook. Here Diana met her, and the two little girls went on up
the lane under the leafy arch of maples-"maples are such sociable trees,"
said Anne; "they're always rustling and whispering to you"-until they came
to a rustic bridge. Then they left the lane and walked through Mr. Barry's
back field and past Willowmere. Beyond Willowmere came Violet Vale-a
little green dimple in the shadow of Mr. Andrew Bell's big woods. "Of
course there are no violets there now," Anne told Marilla, "but Diana says
there are millions of them in spring. Oh, Marilla, can't you just imagine
you see them? It actually takes away my breath. I named it Violet Vale.
Diana says she never saw the beat of me for hitting on fancy names for
places. It's nice to be clever at something, isn't it? But Diana named the
Birch Path. She wanted to, so I let her; but I'm sure I could have found
something more poetical than plain Birch Path. Anybody can think of a name
like that. But the Birch Path is one of the prettiest places in the world,
Marilla."
It was. Other people besides Anne thought so when they stumbled on
it. It was a little narrow, twisting path, winding down over a long hill
straight through Mr. Bell's woods, where the light came down sifted
through so many emerald screens that it was as flawless as the heart of a
diamond. It was fringed in all its length with slim young birches, white
stemmed and lissom boughed; ferns and starflowers and wild
lilies-of-the-valley and scarlet tufts of pigeonberries grew thickly along
it; and always there was a delightful spiciness in the air and music of
bird calls and the murmur and laugh of wood winds in the trees overhead.
Now and then you might see a rabbit skipping across the road if you were
quiet-which, with Anne and Diana, happened about once in a blue moon. Down
in the valley the path came out to the main road and then it was just up
the spruce hill to the school.
The Avonlea school was a whitewashed building, low in the eaves and
wide in the windows, furnished inside with comfortable substantial
old-fashioned desks that opened and shut, and were carved all over their
lids with the initials and hieroglyphics of three generations of school
children. The schoolhouse was set back from the road and behind it was a
dusky fir wood and a brook where all the children put their bottles of
milk in the morning to keep cool and sweet until dinner hour.
Marilla had seen Anne start off to school on the first day of
September with many secret misgivings. Anne was such an odd girl. How
would she get on with the other children? And how on earth would she ever
manage to hold her tongue during school hours?
Things went better than Marilla feared, however. Anne came home that
evening in high spirits.
"I think I'm going to like school here," she announced. "I don't
think much of the master, through. He's all the time curling his mustache
and making eyes at Prissy Andrews. Prissy is grown up, you know. She's
sixteen and she's studying for the entrance examination into Queen's
Academy at Charlottetown next year. Tillie Boulter says the master is DEAD
GONE on her. She's got a beautiful complexion and curly brown hair and she
does it up so elegantly. She sits in the long seat at the back and he sits
there, too, most of the time-to explain her lessons, he says. But Ruby
Gillis says she saw him writing something on her slate and when Prissy
read it she blushed as red as a beet and giggled; and Ruby Gillis says she
doesn't believe it had anything to do with the lesson."
"Anne Shirley, don't let me hear you talking about your teacher in
that way again," said Marilla sharply. "You don't go to school to
criticize the master. I guess he can teach YOU something, and it's your
business to learn. And I want you to understand right off that you are not
to come home telling tales about him. That is something I won't encourage.
I hope you were a good girl."
"Indeed I was," said Anne comfortably. "It wasn't so hard as you
might imagine, either. I sit with Diana. Our seat is right by the window
and we can look down to the Lake of Shining Waters. There are a lot of
nice girls in school and we had scrumptious fun playing at dinnertime.
It's so nice to have a lot of little girls to play with. But of course I
like Diana best and always will. I ADORE Diana. I'm dreadfully far behind
the others. They're all in the fifth book and I'm only in the fourth. I
feel that it's kind of a disgrace. But there's not one of them has such an
imagination as I have and I soon found that out. We had reading and
geography and Canadian history and dictation today. Mr. Phillips said my
spelling was disgraceful and he held up my slate so that everybody could
see it, all marked over. I felt so mortified, Marilla; he might have been
politer to a stranger, I think. Ruby Gillis gave me an apple and Sophia
Sloane lent me a lovely pink card with `May I see you home?' on it. I'm to
give it back to her tomorrow. And Tillie Boulter let me wear her bead ring
all the afternoon. Can I have some of those pearl beads off the old
pincushion in the garret to make myself a ring? And oh, Marilla, Jane
Andrews told me that Minnie MacPherson told her that she heard Prissy
Andrews tell Sara Gillis that I had a very pretty nose. Marilla, that is
the first compliment I have ever had in my life and you can't imagine what
a strange feeling it gave me. Marilla, have I really a pretty nose? I know
you'll tell me the truth."
"Your nose is well enough," said Marilla shortly. Secretly she
thought Anne's nose was a remarkable pretty one; but she had no intention
of telling her so.
That was three weeks ago and all had gone smoothly so far. And now,
this crisp September morning, Anne and Diana were tripping blithely down
the Birch Path, two of the happiest little girls in Avonlea.
"I guess Gilbert Blythe will be in school today," said Diana. "He's
been visiting his cousins over in New Brunswick all summer and he only
came home Saturday night. He's AW'FLY handsome, Anne. And he teases the
girls something terrible. He just torments our lives out."
Diana's voice indicated that she rather liked having her life
tormented out than not.
"Gilbert Blythe?" said Anne. "Isn't his name that's written up on the
porch wall with Julia Bell's and a big `Take Notice' over them?"
"Yes," said Diana, tossing her head, "but I'm sure he doesn't like
Julia Bell so very much. I've heard him say he studied the multiplication
table by her freckles."
"Oh, don't speak about freckles to me," implored Anne. "It isn't
delicate when I've got so many. But I do think that writing take-notices
up on the wall about the boys and girls is the silliest ever. I should
just like to see anybody dare to write my name up with a boy's. Not, of
course," she hastened to add, "that anybody would."
Anne sighed. She didn't want her name written up. But it was a little
humiliating to know that there was no danger of it.
"Nonsense," said Diana, whose black eyes and glossy tresses had
played such havoc with the hearts of Avonlea schoolboys that her name
figured on the porch walls in half a dozen take-notices. "It's only meant
as a joke. And don't you be too sure your name won't ever be written up.
Charlie Sloane is DEAD GONE on you. He told his mother-his MOTHER, mind
you-that you were the smartest girl in school. That's better than being
good looking."
"No, it isn't," said Anne, feminine to the core. "I'd rather be
pretty than clever. And I hate Charlie Sloane, I can't bear a boy with
goggle eyes. If anyone wrote my name up with his I'd never GET over it,
Diana Barry. But it IS nice to keep head of your class."
"You'll have Gilbert in your class after this," said Diana, "and he's
used to being head of his class, I can tell you. He's only in the fourth
book although he's nearly fourteen. Four years ago his father was sick and
had to go out to Alberta for his health and Gilbert went with him. They
were there three years and Gil didn't go to school hardly any until they
came back. You won't find it so easy to keep head after this, Anne."
"I'm glad," said Anne quickly. "I couldn't really feel proud of
keeping head of little boys and girls of just nine or ten. I got up
yesterday spelling `ebullition.' Josie Pye was head and, mind you, she
peeped in her book. Mr. Phillips didn't see her-he was looking at Prissy
Andrews-but I did. I just swept her a look of freezing scorn and she got
as red as a beet and spelled it wrong after all."
"Those Pye girls are cheats all round," said Diana indignantly, as
they climbed the fence of the main road. "Gertie Pye actually went and put
her milk bottle in my place in the brook yesterday. Did you ever? I don't
speak to her now."
When Mr. Phillips was in the back of the room hearing Prissy
Andrews's Latin, Diana whispered to Anne,
"That's Gilbert Blythe sitting right across the aisle from you, Anne.
Just look at him and see if you don't think he's handsome."
Anne looked accordingly. She had a good chance to do so, for the said
Gilbert Blythe was absorbed in stealthily pinning the long yellow braid of
Ruby Gillis, who sat in front of him, to the back of her seat. He was a
tall boy, with curly brown hair, roguish hazel eyes, and a mouth twisted
into a teasing smile. Presently Ruby Gillis started up to take a sum to
the master; she fell back into her seat with a little shriek, believing
that her hair was pulled out by the roots. Everybody looked at her and Mr.
Phillips glared so sternly that Ruby began to cry. Gilbert had whisked the
pin out of sight and was studying his history with the soberest face in
the world; but when the commotion subsided he looked at Anne and winked
with inexpressible drollery.
"I think your Gilbert Blythe IS handsome," confided Anne to Diana,
"but I think he's very bold. It isn't good manners to wink at a strange
girl."
But it was not until the afternoon that things really began to
happen.
Mr. Phillips was back in the corner explaining a problem in algebra
to Prissy Andrews and the rest of the scholars were doing pretty much as
they pleased eating green apples, whispering, drawing pictures on their
slates, and driving crickets harnessed to strings, up and down aisle.
Gilbert Blythe was trying to make Anne Shirley look at him and failing
utterly, because Anne was at that moment totally oblivious not only to the
very existence of Gilbert Blythe, but of every other scholar in Avonlea
school itself. With her chin propped on her hands and her eyes fixed on
the blue glimpse of the Lake of Shining Waters that the west window
afforded, she was far away in a gorgeous dreamland hearing and seeing
nothing save her own wonderful visions.
Gilbert Blythe wasn't used to putting himself out to make a girl look
at him and meeting with failure. She should look at him, that red-haired
Shirley girl with the little pointed chin and the big eyes that weren't
like the eyes of any other girl in Avonlea school.
Gilbert reached across the aisle, picked up the end of Anne's long
red braid, held it out at arm's length and said in a piercing whisper:
"Carrots! Carrots!"
Then Anne looked at him with a vengeance!
She did more than look. She sprang to her feet, her bright fancies
fallen into cureless ruin. She flashed one indignant glance at Gilbert
from eyes whose angry sparkle was swiftly quenched in equally angry tears.
"You mean, hateful boy!" she exclaimed passionately. "How dare you!"
And then-thwack! Anne had brought her slate down on Gilbert's head
and cracked it-slate not head-clear across.
Avonlea school always enjoyed a scene. This was an especially
enjoyable one. Everybody said "Oh" in horrified delight. Diana gasped.
Ruby Gillis, who was inclined to be hysterical, began to cry. Tommy Sloane
let his team of crickets escape him altogether while he stared openmouthed
at the tableau.
Mr. Phillips stalked down the aisle and laid his hand heavily on
Anne's shoulder.
"Anne Shirley, what does this mean?" he said angrily. Anne returned
no answer. It was asking too much of flesh and blood to expect her to tell
before the whole school that she had been called "carrots." Gilbert it was
who spoke up stoutly.
"It was my fault Mr. Phillips. I teased her."
Mr. Phillips paid no heed to Gilbert.
"I am sorry to see a pupil of mine displaying such a temper and such
a vindictive spirit," he said in a solemn tone, as if the mere fact of
being a pupil of his ought to root out all evil passions from the hearts
of small imperfect mortals. "Anne, go and stand on the platform in front
of the blackboard for the rest of the afternoon."
Anne would have infinitely preferred a whipping to this punishment
under which her sensitive spirit quivered as from a whiplash. With a
white, set face she obeyed. Mr. Phillips took a chalk crayon and wrote on
the blackboard above her head.
"Ann Shirley has a very bad temper. Ann Shirley must learn to control
her temper," and then read it out loud so that even the primer class, who
couldn't read writing, should understand it.
Anne stood there the rest of the afternoon with that legend above
her. She did not cry or hang her head. Anger was still too hot in her
heart for that and it sustained her amid all her agony of humiliation.
With resentful eyes and passion-red cheeks she confronted alike Diana's
sympathetic gaze and Charlie Sloane's indignant nods and Josie Pye's
malicious smiles. As for Gilbert Blythe, she would not even look at him.
She would NEVER look at him again! She would never speak to him!!
When school was dismissed Anne marched out with her red head held
high. Gilbert Blythe tried to intercept her at the porch door.
"I'm awfully sorry I made fun of your hair, Anne," he whispered
contritely. "Honest I am. Don't be mad for keeps, now"
Anne swept by disdainfully, without look or sign of hearing. "Oh how
could you, Anne?" breathed Diana as they went down the road half
reproachfully, half admiringly. Diana felt that SHE could never have
resisted Gilbert's plea.
"I shall never forgive Gilbert Blythe," said Anne firmly. "And Mr.
Phillips spelled my name without an e, too. The iron has entered into my
soul, Diana."
Diana hadn't the least idea what Anne meant but she understood it was
something terrible.
"You mustn't mind Gilbert making fun of your hair," she said
soothingly. "Why, he makes fun of all the girls. He laughs at mine because
it's so black. He's called me a crow a dozen times; and I never heard him
apologize for anything before, either."
"There's a great deal of difference between being called a crow and
being called carrots," said Anne with dignity. "Gilbert Blythe has hurt my
feelings EXCRUCIATINGLY, Diana."
It is possible the matter might have blown over without more
excruciation if nothing else had happened. But when things begin to happen
they are apt to keep on.
Avonlea scholars often spent noon hour picking gum in Mr. Bell's
spruce grove over the hill and across his big pasture field. From there
they could keep an eye on Eben Wright's house, where the master boarded.
When they saw Mr. Phillips emerging therefrom they ran for the
schoolhouse; but the distance being about three times longer than Mr.
Wright's lane they were very apt to arrive there, breathless and gasping,
some three minutes too late.
On the following day Mr. Phillips was seized with one of his
spasmodic fits of reform and announced before going home to dinner, that
he should expect to find all the scholars in their seats when he returned.
Anyone who came in late would be punished.
All the boys and some of the girls went to Mr. Bell's spruce grove as
usual, fully intending to stay only long enough to "pick a chew." But
spruce groves are seductive and yellow nuts of gum beguiling; they picked
and loitered and strayed; and as usual the first thing that recalled them
to a sense of the flight of time was Jimmy Glover shouting from the top of
a patriarchal old spruce "Master's coming."
The girls who were on the ground, started first and managed to reach
the schoolhouse in time but without a second to spare. The boys, who had
to wriggle hastily down from the trees, were later; and Anne, who had not
been picking gum at all but was wandering happily in the far end of the
grove, waist deep among the bracken, singing softly to herself, with a
wreath of rice lilies on her hair as if she were some wild divinity of the
shadowy places, was latest of all. Anne could run like a deer, however;
run she did with the impish result that she overtook the boys at the door
and was swept into the schoolhouse among them just as Mr. Phillips was in
the act of hanging up his hat.
Mr. Phillips's brief reforming energy was over; he didn't want the
bother of punishing a dozen pupils; but it was necessary to do something
to save his word, so he looked about for a scapegoat and found it in Anne,
who had dropped into her seat, gasping for breath, with a forgotten lily
wreath hanging askew over one ear and giving her a particularly rakish and
disheveled appearance.
"Anne Shirley, since you seem to be so fond of the boys' company we
shall indulge your taste for it this afternoon," he said sarcastically.
"Take those flowers out of your hair and sit with Gilbert Blythe."
The other boys snickered. Diana, turning pale with pity, plucked the
wreath from Anne's hair and squeezed her hand. Anne stared at the master
as if turned to stone.
"Did you hear what I said, Anne?" queried Mr. Phillips sternly.
"Yes, sir," said Anne slowly "but I didn't suppose you really meant
it."
"I assure you I did"-still with the sarcastic inflection which all
the children, and Anne especially, hated. It flicked on the raw. "Obey me
at once."
For a moment Anne looked as if she meant to disobey. Then, realizing
that there was no help for it, she rose haughtily, stepped across the
aisle, sat down beside Gilbert Blythe, and buried her face in her arms on
the desk. Ruby Gillis, who got a glimpse of it as it went down, told the
others going home from school that she'd "acksually never seen anything
like it-it was so white, with awful little red spots in it."
To Anne, this was as the end of all things. It was bad enough to be
singled out for punishment from among a dozen equally guilty ones; it was
worse still to be sent to sit with a boy, but that that boy should be
Gilbert Blythe was heaping insult on injury to a degree utterly
unbearable. Anne felt that she could not bear it and it would be of no use
to try. Her whole being seethed with shame and anger and humiliation.
At first the other scholars looked and whispered and giggled and
nudged. But as Anne never lifted her head and as Gilbert worked fractions
as if his whole soul was absorbed in them and them only, they soon
returned to their own tasks and Anne was forgotten. When Mr. Phillips
called the history class out Anne should have gone, but Anne did not move,
and Mr. Phillips, who had been writing some verses "To Priscilla" before
he called the class, was thinking about an obstinate rhyme still and never
missed her. Once, when nobody was looking, Gilbert took from his desk a
little pink candy heart with a gold motto on it, "You are sweet," and
slipped it under the curve of Anne's arm. Whereupon Anne arose, took the
pink heart gingerly between the tips of her fingers, dropped it on the
floor, ground it to powder beneath her heel, and resumed her position
without deigning to bestow a glance on Gilbert.
When school went out Anne marched to her desk, ostentatiously took
out everything therein, books and writing tablet, pen and ink, testament
and arithmetic, and piled them neatly on her cracked slate.
"What are you taking all those things home for, Anne?" Diana wanted
to know, as soon as they were out on the road. She had not dared to ask
the question before.
"I am not coming back to school any more," said Anne.
Diana gasped and stared at Anne to see if she meant it.
"Will Marilla let you stay home?" she asked.
"She'll have to," said Anne. "I'll NEVER go to school to that man
again."
"Oh, Anne!" Diana looked as if she were ready to cry. "I do think
you're mean. What shall I do? Mr. Phillips will make me sit with that
horrid Gertie Pye-I know he will because she is sitting alone. Do come
back, Anne."
"I'd do almost anything in the world for you, Diana," said Anne
sadly. "I'd let myself be torn limb from limb if it would do you any good.
But I can't do this, so please don't ask it. You harrow up my very soul."
"Just think of all the fun you will miss," mourned Diana. "We are
going to build the loveliest new house down by the brook; and we'll be
playing ball next week and you've never played ball, Anne. It's
tremendously exciting. And we're going to learn a new songJane Andrews is
practicing it up now; and Alice Andrews is going to bring a new Pansy book
next week and we're all going to read it out loud, chapter about, down by
the brook. And you know you are so fond of reading out loud, Anne."
Nothing moved Anne in the least. Her mind was made up. She would not
go to school to Mr. Phillips again; she told Marilla so when she got home.
"Nonsense," said Marilla.
"It isn't nonsense at all," said Anne, gazing at Marilla with solemn,
reproachful eyes. "Don't you understand, Marilla? I've been insulted."
"Insulted fiddlesticks! You'll go to school tomorrow as usual."
"Oh, no." Anne shook her head gently. "I'm not going back, Marilla.
"I'll learn my lessons at home and I'll be as good as I can be and hold my
tongue all the time if it's possible at all. But I will not go back to
school, I assure you."
Marilla saw something remarkably like unyielding stubbornness looking
out of Anne's small face. She understood that she would have trouble in
overcoming it; but she re-solved wisely to say nothing more just then.
"I'll run down and see Rachel about it this evening," she thought.
"There's no use reasoning with Anne now. She's too worked up and I've an
idea she can be awful stubborn if she takes the notion. Far as I can make
out from her story, Mr. Phillips has been carrying matters with a rather
high hand. But it would never do to say so to her. I'll just talk it over
with Rachel. She's sent ten children to school and she ought to know
something about it. She'll have heard the whole story, too, by this time."
Marilla found Mrs. Lynde knitting quilts as industriously and
cheerfully as usual.
"I suppose you know what I've come about," she said, a little
shamefacedly.
Mrs. Rachel nodded.
"About Anne's fuss in school, I reckon," she said. "Tillie Boulter
was in on her way home from school and told me about it."
"I don't know what to do with her," said Marilla. "She declares she
won't go back to school. I never saw a child so worked up. I've been
expecting trouble ever since she started to school. I knew things were
going too smooth to last. She's so high strung. What would you advise,
Rachel?"
"Well, since you've asked my advice, Marilla," said Mrs. Lynde
amiably-Mrs. Lynde dearly loved to be asked for advice-"I'd just humor her
a little at first, that's what I'd do. It's my belief that Mr. Phillips
was in the wrong. Of course, it doesn't do to say so to the children, you
know. And of course he did right to punish her yesterday for giving way to
temper. But today it was different. The others who were late should have
been punished as well as Anne, that's what. And I don't believe in making
the girls sit with the boys for punishment. It isn't modest. Tillie
Boulter was real indignant. She took Anne's part right through and said
all the scholars did too. Anne seems real popular among them, somehow. I
never thought she'd take with them so well."
"Then you really think I'd better let her stay home," said Marilla in
amazement.
"Yes. That is I wouldn't say school to her again until she said it
herself. Depend upon it, Marilla, she'll cool off in a week or so and be
ready enough to go back of her own accord, that's what, while, if you were
to make her go back right off, dear knows what freak or tantrum she'd take
next and make more trouble than ever. The less fuss made the better, in my
opinion. She won't miss much by not going to school, as far as THAT goes.
Mr. Phillips isn't any good at all as a teacher. The order he keeps is
scandalous, that's what, and he neglects the young fry and puts all his
time on those big scholars he's getting ready for Queen's. He'd never have
got the school for another year if his uncle hadn't been a trustee-THE
trustee, for he just leads the other two around by the nose, that's what.
I declare, I don't know what education in this Island is coming to."
Mrs. Rachel shook her head, as much as to say if she were only at the
head of the educational system of the Province things would be much better
managed.
Marilla took Mrs. Rachel's advice and not another word was said to
Anne about going back to school. She learned her lessons at home, did her
chores, and played with Diana in the chilly purple autumn twilights; but
when she met Gilbert Blythe on the road or encountered him in Sunday
school she passed him by with an icy contempt that was no whit thawed by
his evident desire to appease her. Even Diana's efforts as a peacemaker
were of no avail. Anne had evidently made up her mind to hate Gilbert
Blythe to the end of life.
As much as she hated Gilbert, however, did she love Diana, with all
the love of her passionate little heart, equally intense in its likes and
dislikes. One evening Marilla, coming in from the orchard with a basket of
apples, found Anne sitting along by the east window in the twilight,
crying bitterly.
"Whatever's the matter now, Anne?" she asked.
"It's about Diana," sobbed Anne luxuriously. "I love Diana so,
Marilla. I cannot ever live without her. But I know very well when we grow
up that Diana will get married and go away and leave me. And oh, what
shall I do? I hate her husband-I just hate him furiously. I've been
imagining it all out-the wedding and everything-Diana dressed in snowy
garments, with a veil, and looking as beautiful and regal as a queen; and
me the bridesmaid, with a lovely dress too, and puffed sleeves, but with a
breaking heart hid beneath my smiling face. And then bidding Diana
goodbye-e-e-" Here Anne broke down entirely and wept with increasing
bitterness.
Marilla turned quickly away to hide her twitching face; but it was no
use; she collapsed on the nearest chair and burst into such a hearty and
unusual peal of laughter that Matthew, crossing the yard outside, halted
in amazement. When had he heard Marilla laugh like that before?
"Well, Anne Shirley," said Marilla as soon as she could speak, "if
you must borrow trouble, for pity's sake borrow it handier home. I should
think you had an imagination, sure enough."

16. Diana Is Invited to Tea with Tragic Results

OCTOBER was a beautiful month at Green Gables, when the birches in
the hollow turned as golden as sunshine and the maples behind the orchard
were royal crimson and the wild cherry trees along the lane put on the
loveliest shades of dark red and bronzy green, while the fields sunned
themselves in aftermaths.
Anne reveled in the world of color about her.
"Oh, Marilla," she exclaimed one Saturday morning, coming dancing in
with her arms full of gorgeous boughs" 'I'm so glad I live in a world
where there are Octobers. It would be terrible if we just skipped from
September to November, wouldn't it? Look at these maple branches. Don't
they give you a thrill-several thrills? I'm going to decorate my room with
them."
"Messy things," said Marilla, whose aesthetic sense was not
noticeably developed. "You clutter up your room entirely too much with
out-of-doors stuff, Anne. Bedrooms were made to sleep in."
"Oh, and dream in too, Marilla. And you know one can dream so much
better in a room where there are pretty things. I'm going to put these
boughs in the old blue jug and set them on my table."
"Mind you don't drop leaves all over the stairs then. I'm going on a
meeting of the Aid Society at Carmody this afternoon, Anne, and I won't
likely be home before dark. You'll have to get Matthew and Jerry their
supper, so mind you don't forget to put the tea to draw until you sit down
at the table as you did last time."
"It was dreadful of me to forget," said Anne apologetically, "but
that was the afternoon I was trying to think of a name for Violet Vale and
it crowded other things out. Matthew was so good. He never scolded a bit.
He put the tea down himself and said we could wait awhile as well as not.
And I told him a lovely fairy story while we were waiting, so he didn't
find the time long at all. It was a beautiful fairy story, Marilla. I
forgot the end of it, so I made up an end for it myself and Matthew said
he couldn't tell where the join came in."
"Matthew would think it all right, Anne, if you took a notion to get
up and have dinner in the middle of the night. But you keep your wits
about you this time. And-I don't really know if I'm doing right-it may
make you more addlepated than ever-but you can ask Diana to come over and
spend the afternoon with you and have tea here."
"Oh, Marilla!" Anne clasped her hands. "How perfectly. lovely! You
are able to imagine things after all or else you'd never have understood
how I've longed for that very thing. It will seem so nice and
grown-uppish. No fear of my forgetting to put the tea to draw when I have
company. Oh, Marilla, can I use the rosebud spray tea set?"
"No, indeed! The rosebud tea set! Well, what next? You know I never
use that except for the minister or the Aids. You'll put down the old
brown tea set. But you can open the little yellow crock of cherry
preserves. It's time it was being used anyhow-I believe it's beginning to
work. And you can cut some fruit cake and have some of the cookies and
snaps."
"I can just imagine myself sitting down at the head of the table and
pouring out the tea," said Anne, shutting her eyes ecstatically. "And
asking Diana if she takes sugar! I know she doesn't but of course I'll ask
her just as if I didn't know. And then pressing her to take another piece
of fruit cake and another helping of preserves. Oh, Marilla, it's a
wonderful sensation just to think of it. Can I take her into the spare
room to lay off her hat when she comes? And then into the parlor to sit?"
"No. The sitting room will do for you and your company. But there's a
bottle half full of raspberry cordial that was left over from the church
social the other night. It's on the second shelf of the sitting-room
closet and you and Diana can have it if you like, and a cooky to eat with
it along in the afternoon, for I daresay Matthew'll be late coming in to
tea since he's hauling potatoes to the vessel."
Anne flew down to the hollow, past the Dryad's Bubble and up the
spruce path to Orchard Slope, to ask Diana to tea. As a result just after
Marilla had driven off to Carmody, Diana came over, dressed in HER
second-best dress and looking exactly as it is proper to look when asked
out to tea. At other times she was wont to run into the kitchen without
knocking; but now she knocked primly at the front door. And when Anne,
dressed in her second best, as primly opened it, both little girls shook
hands as gravely as if they had never met before. This unnatural solemnity
lasted until after Diana had been taken to the east gable to lay off her
hat and then had sat for ten minutes in the sitting room, toes in
position.
"How is your mother?" inquired Anne politely, just as if she had not
seen Mrs. Barry picking apples that morning in excellent health and
spirits.
"She is very well, thank you. I suppose Mr. Cuthbert is hauling
potatoes to the LILY SANDS this afternoon, is he?" said Diana, who had
ridden down to Mr. Harmon Andrews's that morning in Matthew's cart.
"Yes. Our potato crop is very good this year. I hope your father's
crop is good too."
"It is fairly good, thank you. Have you picked many of your apples
yet?"
"Oh, ever so many," said Anne forgetting to be dignified and jumping
up quickly. "Let's go out to the orchard and get some of the Red
Sweetings, Diana. Marilla says we can have all that are left on the tree.
Marilla is a very generous woman. She said we could have fruit cake and
cherry preserves for tea. But it isn't good manners to tell your company
what you are going to give them to eat, so I won't tell you what she said
we could have to drink. Only it begins with an R and a C and it's bright
red color. I love bright red drinks, don't you? They taste twice as good
as any other color."
The orchard, with its great sweeping boughs that bent to the ground
with fruit, proved so delightful that the little girls spent most of the
afternoon in it, sitting in a grassy corner where the frost had spared the
green and the mellow autumn sunshine lingered warmly, eating apples and
talking as hard as they could. Diana had much to tell Anne of what went on
in school. She had to sit with Gertie Pye and she hated it; Gertie
squeaked her pencil all the time and it just made her-Diana's-blood run
cold; Ruby Gillis had charmed all her warts away, true's you live, with a
magic pebble that old Mary Joe from the Creek gave her. You had to rub the
warts with the pebble and then throw it away over your left shoulder at
the time of the new moon and the warts would all go. Charlie Sloane's name
was written up with Em White's on the porch wall and Em White was AWFUL
MAD about it; Sam Boulter had "sassed" Mr. Phillips in class and Mr.
Phillips whipped him and Sam's father came down to the school and dared
Mr. Phillips to lay a hand on one of his children again; and Mattie
Andrews had a new red hood and a blue crossover with tassels on it and the
airs she put on about it were perfectly sickening; and Lizzie Wright
didn't speak to Mamie Wilson because Mamie Wilson's grown-up sister had
cut out Lizzie Wright's grown-up sister with her beau; and everybody
missed Anne so and wished she's come to school again; and Gilbert
BlytheBut Anne didn't want to hear about Gilbert Blythe. She jumped up
hurriedly and said suppose they go in and have some raspberry cordial.
Anne looked on the second shelf of the room pantry but there was no
bottle of raspberry cordial there . Search revealed it away back on the
top shelf. Anne put it on a tray and set it on the table with a tumbler.
"Now, please help yourself, Diana," she said politely. "I don't
believe I'll have any just now. I don't feel as if I wanted any after all
those apples."
Diana poured herself out a tumblerful, looked at its bright-red hue
admiringly, and then sipped it daintily.
"That's awfully nice raspberry cordial, Anne," she said. "I didn't
know raspberry cordial was so nice."
"I'm real glad you like it. Take as much as you want. I'm going to
run out and stir the fire up. There are so many responsibilities on a
person's mind when they're keeping house, isn't there?"
When Anne came back from the kitchen Diana was drinking her second
glassful of cordial; and, being entreated thereto by Anne, she offered no
particular objection to the drinking of a third. The tumblerfuls were
generous ones and the raspberry cordial was certainly very nice.
"The nicest I ever drank," said Diana. "It's ever so much nicer than
Mrs. Lynde's, although she brags of hers so much. It doesn't taste a bit
like hers."
"I should think Marilla's raspberry cordial would prob'ly be much
nicer than Mrs. Lynde's," said Anne loyally. "Marilla is a famous cook.
She is trying to teach me to cook but I assure you, Diana, it is uphill
work. There's so little scope for imagination in cookery. You just have to
go by rules. The last time I made a cake I forgot to put the flour in. I
was thinking the loveliest story about you and me, Diana. I thought you
were desperately ill with smallpox and everybody deserted you, but I went
boldly to your bedside and nursed you back to life; and then I took the
smallpox and died and I was buried under those poplar trees in the
graveyard and you planted a rosebush by my grave and watered it with your
tears; and you never, never forgot the friend of your youth who sacrificed
her life for you. Oh, it was such a pathetic tale, Diana. The tears just
rained down over my cheeks while I mixed the cake. But I forgot the flour
and the cake was a dismal failure. Flour is so essential to cakes, you
know. Marilla was very cross and I don't wonder. I'm a great trial to her.
She was terribly mortified about the pudding sauce last week. We had a
plum pudding for dinner on Tuesday and there was half the pudding and a
pitcherful of sauce left over. Marilla said there was enough for another
dinner and told me to set it on the pantry shelf and cover it. I meant to
cover it just as much as could be, Diana, but when I carried it in I was
imagining I was a nun-of course I'm a Protestant but I imagined I was a
Catholic-taking the veil to bury a broken heart in cloistered seclusion;
and I forgot all about covering the pudding sauce. I thought of it next
morning and ran to the pantry. Diana, fancy if you can my extreme horror
at finding a mouse drowned in that pudding sauce! I lifted the mouse out
with a spoon and threw it out in the yard and then I washed the spoon in
three waters. Marilla was out milking and I fully intended to ask her when
she came in if I'd give the sauce to the pigs; but when she did come in I
was imagining that I was a frost fairy going through the woods turning the
trees red and yellow, whichever they wanted to be, so I never thought
about the pudding sauce again and Marilla sent me out to pick apples.
Well, Mr. and Mrs. Chester Ross from Spencervale came here that morning.
You know they are very stylish people, especially Mrs. Chester Ross. When
Marilla called me in dinner was all ready and everybody was at the table.
I tried to be as polite and dignified as I could be, for I wanted Mrs.
Chester Ross to think I WaS a ladylike little girl even if I wasn't
pretty. Everything went right until I saw Marilla coming with the plum
pudding in one hand and the pitcher of pudding sauce WARMED UP, in the
other. Diana, that was a terrible moment. I remembered everything and I
just stood up in my place and shrieked out 'Marilla, you mustn't use that
pudding sauce. There was a mouse drowned in it. I forgot to tell you
before.' Oh, Diana, I shall never forget that awful moment if I live to be
a hundred. Mrs. Chester Ross just LOOKED at me and I thought I would sink
through the floor with mortification. She is such a perfect housekeeper
and fancy what she must have thought of us. Marilla turned red as fire but
she never said a word-then. She just carried that sauce and pudding out
and brought in some strawberry preserves. She even offered me some, but I
couldn't swallow a mouthful. It was like heaping coals of fire on my head.
After Mrs. Chester Ross went away, Marilla gave me a dreadful scolding.
Why, Diana, what is the matter?"
Diana had stood up very unsteadily; then she sat down again, putting
her hands to her head.
"I'm-I'm awful sick," she said, a little thickly. "I-I-must go right
home."
"Oh, you mustn't dream of going home without your tea," cried Anne in
distress. "I'll get it right off-I'll go and put the tea down this very
minute."
"I must go home," repeated Diana, stupidly but determinedly.
"Let me get you a lunch anyhow," implored Anne. "Let me give you a
bit of fruit cake and some of the cherry preserves. Lie down on the sofa
for a little while and you'll be better. Where do you feel bad?"
"I must go home," said Diana, and that was all she would say. In vain
Anne pleaded.
"I never heard of company going home without tea," she mourned. "Oh,
Diana, do you suppose that it's possible you're really taking the
smallpox? If you are I'll go and nurse you, you can depend on that. I'll
never forsake you. But I do wish you'd stay till after tea. Where do you
feel bad?"
"I'm awful dizzy," said Diana.
And indeed, she walked very dizzily. Anne, with tears of
disappointment in her eyes, got Diana's hat and went with her as far as
the Barry yard fence. Then she wept all the way back to Green Gables,
where she sorrowfully put the remainder of the raspberry cordial back into
the pantry and got tea ready for Matthew and Jerry, with all the zest gone
out of the performance.
The next day was Sunday and as the rain poured down in torrents from
dawn till dusk Anne did not stir abroad from Green Gables. Monday
afternoon Marilla sent her down to Mrs. Lynde's on an errand. In a very
short space of time Anne came flying back up the lane with tears rolling
down her cheeks. Into the kitchen she dashed and flung herself face
downward on the sofa in an agony.
"Whatever has gone wrong now, Anne?" queried Marilla in doubt and
dismay. "I do hope you haven't gone and been saucy to Mrs. Lynde again."
No answer from Anne save more tears and stormier sobs!
"Anne Shirley, when I ask you a question I want to be answered. Sit
right up this very minute and tell me what you are crying about."
Anne sat up, tragedy personified.
"Mrs. Lynde was up to see Mrs. Barry today and Mrs. Barry was in an
awful state," she wailed. "She says that I set Diana DRUNK Saturday and
sent her home in a disgraceful condition. And she says I must be a
thoroughly bad, wicked little girl and she's never, never going to let
Diana play with me again. Oh, Marilla, I'm just overcome with woe."
Marilla stared in blank amazement.
"Set Diana drunk!" she said when she found her voice. "Anne are you
or Mrs. Barry crazy? What on earth did you give her?"
"Not a thing but raspberry cordial," sobbed Anne. "I never thought
raspberry cordial would set people drunk, Marilla-not even if they drank
three big tumblerfuls as Diana did. Oh, it sounds so-so-like Mrs. Thomas's
husband! But I didn't mean to set her drunk."
"Drunk fiddlesticks!" said Marilla, marching to the sitting room
pantry. There on the shelf was a bottle which she at once recognized as
one containing some of her three-year-old homemade currant wine for which
she was celebrated in Avonlea, although certain of the stricter sort, Mrs.
Barry among them, disapproved strongly of it. And at the same time Marilla
recollected that she had put the bottle of raspberry cordial down in the
cellar instead of in the pantry as she had told Anne.
She went back to the kitchen with the wine bottle in her hand. Her
face was twitching in spite of herself.
"Anne, you certainly have a genius for getting into trouble. You went
and gave Diana currant wine instead of raspberry cordial. Didn't you know
the difference yourself?"
"I never tasted it," said Anne. "I thought it was the cordial. I
meant to be so-so-hospitable. Diana got awfully sick and had to go home.
Mrs. Barry told Mrs. Lynde she was simply dead drunk. She just laughed
silly-like when her mother asked her what was the matter and went to sleep
and slept for hours. Her mother smelled her breath and knew she was drunk.
She had a fearful headache all day yesterday. Mrs. Barry is so indignant.
She will never believe but what I did it on purpose."
"I should think she would better punish Diana for being so greedy as
to drink three glassfuls of anything," said Marilla shortly. "Why, three
of those big glasses would have made her sick even if it had only been
cordial. Well, this story will be a nice handle for those folks who are so
down on me for making currant wine, although I haven't made any for three
years ever since I found out that the minister didn't approve. I just kept
that bottle for sickness. There, there, child, don't cry. I can't see as
you were to blame although I'm sorry it happened so."
"I must cry," said Anne. "My heart is broken. The stars in. their
courses fight against me, Marilla. Diana and I are parted forever. Oh,
Marilla, I little dreamed of this when first we swore our vows of
friendship."
"Don't be foolish, Anne. Mrs. Barry will think better of it when she
finds you're not to blame. I suppose she thinks you've done it for a silly
joke or something of that sort. You'd best go up this evening and tell her
how it was."
"My courage fails me at the thought of facing Diana's injured mother,"
sighed Anne. "I wish you'd go, Marilla. You're so much more dignified
than I am. Likely she'd listen to you quicker than to me."
"Well, I will," said Marilla, reflecting that it would probably be
the wiser course. "Don't cry any more, Anne. It will be all right."
Marilla had changed her mind about it being all right by the time she
got back from Orchard Slope. Anne was watching for her coming and flew to
the porch door to meet her.
"Oh, Marilla, I know by your face that it's been no use," she said
sorrowfully. "Mrs. Barry won't forgive me?"
"Mrs. Barry indeed!" snapped Marilla. "Of all the unreasonable women
I ever saw she's the worst. I told her it was all a mistake and you
weren't to blame, but she just simply didn't believe me. And she rubbed it
well in about my currant wine and how I'd always said it couldn't have the
least effect on anybody. I just told her plainly that currant wine wasn't
meant to be drunk three tumblerfuls at a time and that if a child I had to
do with was so greedy I'd sober her up with a right good spanking."
Marilla whisked into the kitchen, grievously disturbed, leaving a
very much distracted little soul in the porch behind her. Presently Anne
stepped out bareheaded into the chill autumn dusk; very determinedly and
steadily she took her way down through the sere clover field over the log
bridge and up through the spruce grove, lighted by a pale little moon
hanging low over the western woods. Mrs. Barry, coming to the door in
answer to a timid knock, found a white-lipped eager-eyed suppliant on the
doorstep.
Her face hardened. Mrs. Barry was a woman of strong prejudices and
dislikes, and her anger was of the cold, sullen sort which is always
hardest to overcome. To do her justice, she really believed Anne had made
Diana drunk out of sheer malice prepense, and she was honestly anxious to
preserve her little daughter from the contamination of further intimacy
with such a child.
"What do you want?" she said stiffly.
Anne clasped her hands.
"Oh, Mrs. Barry, please forgive me. I did not mean to-to-intoxicate
Diana. How could I? Just imagine if you were a poor little orphan girl
that kind people had adopted and you had just one bosom friend in all the
world. Do you think you would intoxicate her on purpose? I thought it was
only raspberry cordial. I was firmly convinced it was raspberry cordial.
Oh, please don't say that you won't let Diana play with me any more. If
you do you will cover my life with a dark cloud of woe."
This speech which would have softened good Mrs. Lynde's heart in a
twinkling, had no effect on Mrs. Barry except to irritate her still more.
She was suspicious of Anne's big words and dramatic gestures and imagined
that the child was making fun of her. So she said, coldly and cruelly:
"I don't think you are a fit little girl for Diana to associate with.
You'd better go home and behave yourself."
Anne's lips quivered.
"Won't you let me see Diana just once to say farewell?" she implored.
"Diana has gone over to Carmody with her father," said Mrs. Barry,
going in and shutting the door.
Anne went back to Green Gables calm with despair.
"My last hope is gone," she told Marilla. "I went up and saw Mrs.
Barry myself and she treated me very insultingly. Marilla, I do not think
she is a well-bred woman. There is nothing more to do except to pray and I
haven't much hope that that'll do much good because, Marilla, I do not
believe that God Himself can do very much with such an obstinate person as
Mrs. Barry."
"Anne, you shouldn't say such things" rebuked Marilla, striving to
overcome that unholy tendency to laughter which she was dismayed to find
growing upon her. And indeed, when she told the whole story to Matthew
that night, she did laugh heartily over Anne's tribulations.
But when she slipped into the east gable before going to bed and
found that Anne had cried herself to sleep an unaccustomed softness crept
into her face.
"Poor little soul," she murmured, lifting a loose curl of hair from
the child's tear-stained face. Then she bent down and kissed the flushed
cheek on the pillow.

17. A New Interest in Life

THE next afternoon Anne, bending over her patchwork at the kitchen
window, happened to glance out and beheld Diana down by the Dryad's Bubble
beckoning mysteriously. In a trice Anne was out of the house and flying
down to the hollow, astonishment and hope struggling in her expressive
eyes. But the hope faded when she saw Diana's dejected countenance.
"Your mother hasn't relented?" she gasped.
Diana shook her head mournfully.
"No; and oh, Anne, she says I'm never to play with you again. I've
cried and cried and I told her it wasn't your fault, but it wasn't any
use. I had ever such a time coaxing her to let me come down and say
good-bye to you. She said I was only to stay ten minutes and she's timing
me by the clock."
"Ten minutes isn't very long to say an eternal farewell in," said
Anne tearfully. "Oh, Diana, will you promise faithfully never to forget
me, the friend of your youth, no matter what dearer friends may caress
thee?"
"Indeed I will," sobbed Diana, "and I'll never have another bosom
friend-I don't want to have. I couldn't love anybody as I love you."
"Oh, Diana," cried Anne, clasping her hands, "do you LOVE me?"
"Why, of course I do. Didn't you know that?"
"No." Anne drew a long breath. "I thought you LIKED me of course but
I never hoped you LOVED me. Why, Diana, I didn't think anybody could love
me. Nobody ever has loved me since I can remember. Oh, this is wonderful!
It's a ray of light which will forever shine on the darkness of a path
severed from thee, Diana. Oh, just say it once again."
"I love you devotedly, Anne," said Diana stanchly, "and I always
will, you may be sure of that."
"And I will always love thee, Diana," said Anne, solemnly extending
her hand. "In the years to come thy memory will shine like a star over my
lonely life, as that last story we read together says. Diana, wilt thou
give me a lock of thy jet-black tresses in parting to treasure
forevermore?"
"Have you got anything to cut it with?" queried Diana, wiping away
the tears which Anne's affecting accents had caused to flow afresh, and
returning to practicalities.
"Yes. I've got my patchwork scissors in my apron pocket fortunately,"
said Anne. She solemnly clipped one of Diana's curls. "Fare thee well, my
beloved friend. Henceforth we must be as strangers though living side by
side. But my heart will ever be faithful to thee."
Anne stood and watched Diana out of sight, mournfully waving her hand
to the latter whenever she turned to look back. Then she returned to the
house, not a little consoled for the time being by this romantic parting.
"It is all over," she informed Marilla. "I shall never have another
friend. I'm really worse off than ever before, for I haven't Katie Maurice
and Violetta now. And even if I had it wouldn't be the same. Somehow,
little dream girls are not satisfying after a real friend. Diana and I had
such an affecting farewell down by the spring. It will be sacred in my
memory forever. I used the most pathetic language I could think of and
said `thou' and `thee.' `Thou' and `thee' seem so much more romantic than
`you.' Diana gave me a lock of her hair and I'm going to sew it up in a
little bag and wear it around my neck all my life. Please see that it is
buried with me, for I don't believe I'll live very long. Perhaps when she
sees me lying cold and dead before her Mrs. Barry may feel remorse for
what she has done and will let Diana come to my funeral."
"I don't think there is much fear of your dying of grief as long as
you can talk, Anne," said Marilla unsympathetically.
The following Monday Anne surprised Marilla by coming down from her
room with her basket of books on her arm and hip lips primmed up into a
line of determination.
"I'm going back to school," she announced. "That is all there is left
in life for me, now that my friend has been ruthlessly torn from me. In
school I can look at her and muse over days departed."
"You'd better muse over your lessons and sums," said Marilla,
concealing her delight at this development of the situation. "If you're
going back to school I hope we'll hear no more of breaking slates over
people's heads and such carryings on. Behave yourself and do just what
your teacher tells you."
"I'll try to be a model pupil," agreed Anne dolefully. "There won't
be much fun in it, I expect. Mr. Phillips said Minnie Andrews was a model
pupil and there isn't a spark of imagination or life in her. She is just
dull and poky and never seems to have a good time. But I feel so depressed
that perhaps it will come easy to me now. I'm going round by the road. I
couldn't bear to go by the Birch Path all alone. I should weep bitter
tears if I did."
Anne was welcomed back to school with open arms. Her imagination had
been sorely missed in games, her voice in the singing and her dramatic
ability in the perusal aloud of books at dinner hour. Ruby Gillis smuggled
three blue plums over to her during testament reading; Ella May MacPherson
gave her an enormous yellow pansy cut from the covers of a floral
catalogue-a species of desk decoration much prized in Avonlea school.
Sophia Sloane offered to teach her a perfectly elegant new pattern of knit
lace, so nice for trimming aprons. Katie Boulter gave her a perfume bottle
to keep slate water in, and Julia Bell copied carefully on a piece of pale
pink paper scalloped on the edges the following effusion:

When twilight drops her curtain down
And pins it with a star
Remember that you have a friend
Though she may wander far.

"It's so nice to be appreciated," sighed Anne rapturously to Marilla
that night.
The girls were not the only scholars who "appreciated" her. When Anne
went to her seat after dinner hour-she had been told by Mr. Phillips to
sit with the model Minnie Andrews-she found on her desk a big luscious
"strawberry apple." Anne caught it up all ready to take a bite when she
remembered that the only place in Avonlea where strawberry apples grew was
in the old Blythe orchard on the other side of the Lake of Shining Waters.
Anne dropped the apple as if it were a red-hot coal and ostentatiously
wiped her fingers on her handkerchief. The apple lay untouched on her desk
until the next morning, when little Timothy Andrews, who swept the school
and kindled the fire, annexed it as one of his perquisites. Charlie
Sloane's slate pencil, gorgeously bedizened with striped red and yellow
paper, costing two cents where ordinary pencils cost only one, which he
sent up to her after dinner hour, met with a more favorable reception.
Anne was graciously pleased to accept it and rewarded the donor with a
smile which exalted that infatuated youth straightway into the seventh
heaven of delight and caused him to make such fearful errors in his
dictation that Mr. Phillips kept him in after school to rewrite it.
But as,

The Caesar's pageant shorn of Brutus' bust
Did but of Rome's best son remind her more.

so the marked absence of any tribute or recognition from Diana Barry
who was sitting with Gertie Pye embittered Anne's little triumph.
"Diana might just have smiled at me once, I think," she mourned to
Marilla that night. But the next morning a note most fearfully and
wonderfully twisted and folded, and a small parcel were passed across to
Anne.

Dear Anne (ran the former)
Mother says I'm not to play with you or talk to you even in school.
It isn't my fault and don't be cross at me, because I love you as much as
ever. I miss you awfully to tell all my secrets to and I don't like Gertie
Pye one bit. I made you one of the new bookmarkers out of red tissue
paper. They are awfully fashionable now and only three girls in school
know how to make them. When you look at it remember
Your true friend
Diana Barry.

Anne read the note, kissed the bookmark, and dispatched a prompt
reply back to the other side of the school.

My own darling Diana:-
Of course I am not cross at you because you have to obey your mother.
Our spirits can commune. I shall keep your lovely present forever. Minnie
Andrews is a very nice little girl-although she has no imagination-but
after having been Diana's busum friend I cannot be Minnie's. Please excuse
mistakes because my spelling isn't very good yet, although much improoved.
Yours until death us do part
Anne or Cordelia Shirley.

P.S. I shall sleep with your letter under my pillow tonight.
A. OR C.S.

Marilla pessimistically expected more trouble since Anne had again
begun to go to school. But none developed. Perhaps Anne caught something
of the "model" spirit from Minnie Andrews; at least she got on very well
with Mr. Phillips thenceforth. She flung herself into her studies heart
and soul, determined not to be outdone in any class by Gilbert Blythe. The
rivalry between them was soon apparent; it was entirely good natured on
Gilbert's side; but it is much to be feared that the same thing cannot be
said of Anne, who had certainly an unpraiseworthy tenacity for holding
grudges. She was as intense in her hatreds as in her loves. She would not
stoop to admit that she meant to rival Gilbert in schoolwork, because that
would have been to acknowledge his existence which Anne persistently
ignored; but the rivalry was there and honors fluctuated between them. Now
Gilbert was head of the spelling class; now Anne, with a toss of her long
red braids, spelled him down. One morning Gilbert had all his sums done
correctly and had his name written on the blackboard on the roll of honor;
the next morning Anne, having wrestled wildly with decimals the entire
evening before, would be first. One awful day they were ties and their
names were written up together. It was almost as bad as a take-notice and
Anne's mortification was as evident as Gilbert's satisfaction. When the
written examinations at the end of each month were held the suspense was
terrible. The first month Gilbert came out three marks ahead. The second
Anne beat him by five. But her triumph was marred by the fact that Gilbert
congratulated her heartily before the whole school. It would have been
ever so much sweeter to her if he had felt the sting of his defeat.
Mr. Phillips might not be a very good teacher; but a pupil so
inflexibly determined on learning as Anne was could hardly escape making
progress under any kind of teacher. By the end of the term Anne and
Gilbert were both promoted into the fifth class and allowed to begin
studying the elements of "the branches"-by which Latin, geometry, French,
and algebra were meant. In geometry Anne met her Waterloo.
"It's perfectly awful stuff, Marilla," she groaned. "I'm sure I'll
never be able to make head or tail of it. There is no scope for
imagination in it at all. Mr. Phillips says I'm the worst dunce he ever
saw at it. And Gil-I mean some of the others are so smart at it. It is
extremely mortifying, Marilla.
Even Diana gets along better than I do. But I don't mind being beaten
by Diana. Even although we meet as strangers now I still love her with an
INEXTINGUISHABLE love. It makes me very sad at times to think about her.
But really, Marilla, one can't stay sad very long in such an interesting
world, can one?"

18. Anne to the Rescue

ALL things great are wound up with all things little. At first glance
it might not seem that the decision of a certain Canadian Premier to
include Prince Edward Island in a political tour could have much or
anything to do with the fortunes of little Anne Shirley at Green Gables.
But it had.
It was a January the Premier came, to address his loyal supporters
and such of his nonsupporters as chose to be present at the monster mass
meeting held in Charlottetown. Most of the Avonlea people were on
Premier's side of politics; hence on the night of the meeting nearly all
the men and a goodly proportion of the women had gone to town thirty miles
away. Mrs. Rachel Lynde had gone too. Mrs. Rachel Lynde was a red-hot
politician and couldn't have believed that the political rally could be
carried through without her, although she was on the opposite side of
politics. So she went to town and took her husband-Thomas would be useful
in looking after the horse-and Marilla Cuthbert with her. Marilla had a
sneaking interest in politics herself, and as she thought it might be her
only chance to see a real live Premier, she promptly took it, leaving Anne
and Matthew to keep house until her return the following day.
Hence, while Marilla and Mrs. Rachel were enjoying themselves hugely
at the mass meeting, Anne and Matthew had the cheerful kitchen at Green
Gables all to themselves. A bright fire was glowing in the old-fashioned
Waterloo stove and blue-white frost crystals were shining on the
windowpanes. Matthew nodded over a FARMERS' ADVOCATE on the sofa and Anne
at the table studied her lessons with grim determination, despite sundry
wistful glances at the clock shelf, where lay a new book that Jane Andrews
had lent her that day. Jane had assured her that it was warranted to
produce any number of thrills, or words to that effect, and Anne's fingers
tingled to reach out for it. But that would mean Gilbert Blythe's triumph
on the morrow. Anne turned her back on the clock shelf and tried to
imagine it wasn't there.
"Matthew, did you ever study geometry when you went to school?"
"Well now, no, I didn't," said Matthew, coming out of his doze with a
start.
"I wish you had," sighed Anne, "because then you'd be able to
sympathize with me. You can't sympathize properly if you've never studied
it. It is casting a cloud over my whole life. I'm such a dunce at it,
Matthew."
"Well now, I dunno," said Matthew soothingly. "I guess you're all
right at anything. Mr. Phillips told me last week in Blair's store at
Carmody that you was the smartest scholar in school and was making rapid
progress. `Rapid progress' was his very words. There's them as runs down
Teddy Phillips and says he ain't much of a teacher, but I guess he's all
right."
Matthew would have thought anyone who praised Anne was "all right."
"I'm sure I'd get on better with geometry if only he wouldn't change
the letters," complained Anne. "I learn the proposition off by heart and
then he draws it on the blackboard and puts different letters from what
are in the book and I get all mixed up. I don't think a teacher should
take such a mean advantage, do you? We're studying agriculture now and
I've found out at last what makes the roads red. It's a great comfort. I
wonder how Marilla and Mrs. Lynde are enjoying themselves. Mrs. Lynde says
Canada is going to the dogs the way things are being run at Ottawa and
that it's an awful warning to the electors. She says if women were allowed
to vote we would soon see a blessed change. What way do you vote, Matthew?"
"Conservative," said Matthew promptly. To vote Conservative was part
of Matthew's religion.
"Then I'm Conservative too," said Anne decidedly. "I'm glad because
Gil-because some of the boys in school are Grits. I guess Mr. Phillips is
a Grit too because Prissy Andrews's father is one, and Ruby Gillis says
that when a man is courting he always has to agree with the girl's mother
in religion and her father in politics. Is that true, Matthew?"
"Well now, I dunno," said Matthew.
"Did you ever go courting, Matthew?"
"Well now, no, I dunno's I ever did," said Matthew, who had certainly
never thought of such a thing in his whole existence.
Anne reflected with her chin in her hands.
"It must be rather interesting, don't you think, Matthew? Ruby Gillis
says when she grows up she's going to have ever so many beaus on the
string and have them all crazy about her; but I think that would be too
exciting. I'd rather have just one in his right mind. But Ruby Gillis
knows a great deal about such matters because she has so many big sisters,
and Mrs. Lynde says the Gillis girls have gone off like hot cakes. Mr.
Phillips goes up to see Prissy Andrews nearly every evening. He says it is
to help her with her lessons but Miranda Sloane is studying for Queen's
too, and I should think she needed help a lot more than Prissy because
she's ever so much stupider, but he never goes to help her in the evenings
at all. There are a great many things in this world that I can't
understand very well, Matthew."
"Well now, I dunno. as I comprehend them all myself," acknowledged
Matthew.
"Well, I suppose I must finish up my lessons. I won't allow myself to
open that new book Jane lent me until I'm through. But it's a terrible
temptation, Matthew. Even when I turn my back on it I can see it there
just as plain. Jane said she cried herself sick over it. I love a book
that makes me cry. But I think I'll carry that book into the sitting room
and lock it in the jam closet and give you the key. And you must not give
it to me, Matthew, until my lessons are done, not even if I implore you on
my bended knees. It's all very well to say resist temptation, but it's
ever so much easier to resist it if you can't get the key. And then shall
I run down the cellar and get some russets, Matthew? Wouldn't you like
some russets?"
"Well now, I dunno but what I would," said Matthew, who never ate
russets but knew Anne's weakness for them.
Just as Anne emerged triumphantly from the cellar with her plateful
of russets came the sound of flying footsteps on the icy board walk
outside and the next moment the kitchen door was flung open and in rushed
Diana Barry, white faced and breathless, with a shawl wrapped hastily
around her head. Anne promptly let go of her candle and plate in her
surprise, and plate, candle, and apples crashed together down the cellar
ladder and were found at the bottom embedded in melted grease, the next
day, by Marilla, who gathered them up and thanked mercy the house hadn't
been set on fire.
"Whatever is the matter, Diana?" cried Anne. "Has your mother
relented at last?"
"Oh, Anne, do come quick," implored Diana nervously. "Minnie May is
awful sick-she's got croup. Young Mary Joe says-and Father and Mother are
away to town and there's nobody to go for the doctor. Minnie May is awful
bad and Young Mary Joe doesn't know what to do-and oh, Anne, I'm so
scared!"
Matthew, without a word, reached out for cap and coat, slipped past
Diana and away into the darkness of the yard.
"He's gone to harness the sorrel mare to go to Carmody for the
doctor," said Anne, who was hurrying on hood and jacket. "I know it as
well as if he'd said so. Matthew and I are such kindred spirits I can read
his thoughts without words at all."
"I don't believe he'll find the doctor at Carmody," sobbed Diana. "I
know that Dr. Blair went to town and I guess Dr. Spencer would go too.
Young Mary Joe never saw anybody with croup and Mrs. Lynde is away. Oh,
Anne!"
"Don't cry, Di," said Anne cheerily. "I know exactly what to do for
croup. You forget that Mrs. Hammond had twins three times. When you look
after three pairs of twins you naturally get a lot of experience. They all
had croup regularly. Just wait till I get the ipecac bottle-you mayn't
have any at your house. Come on now."
The two little girls hastened out hand in hand and hurried through
Lover's Lane and across the crusted field beyond, for the snow was too
deep to go by the shorter wood way. Anne, although sincerely sorry for
Minnie May, was far from being insensible to the romance of the situation
and to the sweetness of once more sharing that romance with a kindred
spirit.
The night was clear and frosty, all ebony of shadow and silver of
snowy slope; big stars were shining over the silent fields; here and there
the dark pointed firs stood up with snow powdering their branches and the
wind whistling through them. Anne thought it was truly delightful to go
skimming through all this mystery and loveliness with your bosom friend
who had been so long estranged.
Minnie May, aged three, was really very sick. She lay on the kitchen
sofa feverish and restless, while her hoarse breathing could be heard all
over the house. Young Mary Joe, a buxom, broad-faced French girl from the
creek, whom Mrs. Barry had engaged to stay with the children during her
absence, was helpless and bewildered, quite incapable of thinking what to
do, or doing it if she thought of it.
Anne went to work with skill and promptness.
"Minnie May has croup all right; she's pretty bad, but I've seen them
worse. First we must have lots of hot water. I declare, Diana, there isn't
more than a cupful in the kettle! There, I've filled it up, and, Mary Joe,
you may put some wood in the stove. I don't want to hurt your feelings but
it seems to me you might have thought of this before if you'd any
imagination. Now, I'll undress Minnie May and put her to bed and you try
to find some soft flannel cloths, Diana. I'm going to give her a dose of
ipecac first of all."
Minnie May did not take kindly to the ipecac but Anne had not brought
up three. pairs of twins for nothing. Down that ipecac went, not only
once, but many times during the long, anxious night when the two little
girls worked patiently over the suffering Minnie May, and Young Mary Joe,
honestly anxious to do all she could, kept up a roaring fire and heated
more water than would have been needed for a hospital of croupy babies.
It was three o'clock when Matthew came with a doctor, for he had been
obliged to go all the way to Spencervale for one. But the pressing need
for assistance was past. Minnie May was much better and was sleeping
soundly.
"I was awfully near giving up in despair," explained Anne. "She got
worse and worse until she was sicker than ever the Hammond twins were,
even the last pair. I actually thought she was going to choke to death. I
gave her every drop of ipecac in that bottle and when the last dose went
down I said to myself-not to Diana or Young Mary Joe, because I didn't
want to worry them any more than they were worried, but I had to say it to
myself just to relieve my feelings-`This is the last lingering hope and I
fear, tis a vain one.' But in about three minutes she coughed up the
phlegm and began to get better right away. You must just imagine my
relief, doctor, because I can't express it in words. You know there are
some things that cannot be expressed in words."
"Yes, I know," nodded the doctor. He looked at Anne as if he were
thinking some things about her that couldn't be expressed in words. Later
on, however, he expressed them to Mr. and Mrs. Barry.
"That little redheaded girl they have over at Cuthbert's is as smart
as they make 'em. I tell you she saved that baby's life, for it would have
been too late by the time I got there. She seems to have a skill and
presence of mind perfectly wonderful in a child of her age. I never saw
anything like the eyes of her when she was explaining the case to me."
Anne had gone home in the wonderful, white-frosted winter morning,
heavy eyed from loss of sleep, but still talking unweariedly to Matthew as
they crossed the long white field and walked under the glittering fairy
arch of the Lover's Lane maples.
"Oh, Matthew, isn't it a wonderful morning? The world looks like
something God had just imagined for His own pleasure, doesn't it? Those
trees look as if I could blow them away with a breath-pouf! I'm so glad I
live in a world where there are white frosts, aren't you? And I'm so glad
Mrs. Hammond had three pairs of twins after all. If she hadn't I mightn't
have known what to do for Minnie May. I'm real sorry I was ever cross with
Mrs. Hammond for having twins. But, oh, Matthew, I'm so sleepy. I can't go
to school. I just know I couldn't keep my eyes open and I'd be so stupid.
But l hate to stay home, for Gil-some of the others will get head of the
class, and it's so hard to get up again-although of course the harder it
is the more satisfaction you have when you do get up, haven't you?"
"Well now, I guess you'll manage all right," said Matthew, looking at
Anne's white little face and the dark shadows under her eyes. "You just go
right to bed and have a good sleep. I'll do all the chores."
Anne accordingly went to bed and slept so long and soundly that it
was well on in the white and rosy winter afternoon when she awoke and
descended to the kitchen where Marilla, who had arrived home in the
meantime, was sitting knitting.
"Oh, did you see the Premier?" exclaimed Anne at once. "What did he
look like Marilla?"
"Well, he never got to be Premier on account of his looks," said
Marilla. "Such a nose as that man had! But he can speak. I was proud of
being a Conservative. Rachel Lynde, of course, being a Liberal, had no use
for him. Your dinner is in the oven, Anne, and you can get yourself some
blue plum preserve out of the pantry. I guess you're hungry. Matthew has
been telling me about last night. I must say it was fortunate you knew
what to do. I wouldn't have had any idea myself, for I never saw a case of
croup. There now, never mind talking till you've had your dinner. I can
tell by the look of you that you're just full up with speeches, but
they'll keep."
Marilla had something to tell Anne, but she did not tell it just then
for she knew if she did Anne's consequent excitement would lift her clear
out of the region of such material matters as appetite or dinner. Not
until Anne had finished her saucer of blue plums did Marilla say:
"Mrs. Barry was here this afternoon, Anne. She wanted to see you, but
I wouldn't wake you up. She says you saved Minnie May's life, and she is
very sorry she acted as she did in that affair of the currant wine. She
says she knows now you didn't mean to set Diana drunk, and she hopes
you'll forgive her and be good friends with Diana again. You're to go over
this evening if you like for Diana can't stir outside the door on account
of a bad cold she caught last night. Now, Anne Shirley, for pity's sake
don't fly up into the. air"
The warning seemed not unnecessary, so uplifted and aerial was Anne's
expression and attitude as she sprang to her feet, her face irradiated
with the flame of her spirit.
"Oh, Marilla, can I go right now-without washing my dishes? I'll wash
them when I come back, but I cannot tie myself down to anything so
unromantic as dishwashing at this thrilling moment."
"Yes, yes, run along," said Marilla indulgently. "Anne Shirley-are
you crazy? Come back this instant and put something on you. I might as
well call to the wind. She's gone without a cap or wrap. Look at her
tearing through the orchard with her hair streaming. It'll be a mercy if
she doesn't catch her death of cold."
Anne came dancing home in the purple winter twilight across the snowy
places. Afar in the southwest was the great shimmering, pearl-like sparkle
of an evening star in a sky that was pale golden and ethereal rose over
gleaming white spaces and dark glens of spruce. The tinkles of sleigh
bells among the snowy hills came like elfin chimes through the frosty air,
but their music was not sweeter than the song in Anne's heart and on her
lips.
"You see before you a perfectly happy person, Marilla," she
announced. "I'm perfectly happy-yes, in spite of my red hair. Just at
present I have a soul above red hair. Mrs. Barry kissed me and cried and
said she was so sorry and she could never repay me. I felt fearfully
embarrassed, Marilla, but I just said as politely as I could, `I have no
hard feelings for you, Mrs. Barry. I assure you once for all that I did
not mean to intoxicate Diana and henceforth I shall cover the past with
the mantle of oblivion.' That was a pretty dignified way of speaking
wasn't it, Marilla?
I felt that I was heaping coals of fire on Mrs. Barry's head. And
Diana and I had a lovely afternoon. Diana showed me a new fancy crochet
stitch her aunt over at Carmody taught her. Not a soul in Avonlea knows it
but us, and we pledged a solemn vow never to reveal it to anyone else.
Diana gave me a beautiful card with a wreath of roses on it and a verse of
poetry:

"If you love me as I love you
Nothing but death can part us two.

And that is true, Marilla. We're going to ask Mr. Phillips to let us
sit together in school again, and Gertie Pye can go with Minnie Andrews.
We had an elegant tea. Mrs. Barry had the very best china set out,
Marilla, just as if I was real company. I can't tell you what a thrill it
gave me. Nobody ever used their very best china on my account before. And
we had fruit cake and pound cake and doughnuts and two kinds of preserves,
Marilla. And Mrs. Barry asked me if I took tea and said `Pa, why don't you
pass the biscuits to Anne?' It must be lovely to be grown up, Marilla,
when just being treated as if you were is so nice."
"I don't know about that," said Marilla, with a brief sigh.
"Well, anyway, when I am grown up," said Anne decidedly" 'I'm always
going to talk to little girls as if they were too, and I'll never laugh
when they use big words. I know from sorrowful experience how that hurts
one's feelings. After tea Diana and I made taffy. The taffy wasn't very
good, I suppose because neither Diana nor I had ever made any before.
Diana left me to stir it while she buttered the plates and I forgot and
let it burn; and then when we set it out on the platform to cool the cat
walked over one plate and that had to be thrown away. But the making of it
was splendid fun. Then when I came home Mrs. Barry asked me to come over
as often as I could and Diana stood at the window and threw kisses to me
all the way down to Lover's Lane. I assure you, Marilla, that I feel like
praying tonight and I'm going to think out a special brand-new prayer in
honor of the occasion."

19. A Concert a Catastrophe and a Confession

"MARILLA, can I go over to see Diana just for a minute?" asked Anne,
running breathlessly down from the east gable one February evening.
"I don't see what you want to be traipsing about after dark for,"
said Marilla shortly. "You and Diana walked home from school together and
then stood down there in the snow for half an hour more, your tongues
going the whole blessed time, clickety-clack. So I don't think you're very
badly off to see her again."
"But she wants to see me," pleaded Anne. "She has something very
important to tell me."
"How do you know she has?"
"Because she just signaled to me from her window. We have arranged a
way to signal with our candles and cardboard. We set the candle on the
window sill and make flashes by passing the cardboard back and forth. So
many flashes mean a certain thing. It was my idea, Marilla."
"I'll warrant you it was," said Marilla emphatically. "And the next
thing you'll be setting fire to the curtains with your signaling nonsense."
"Oh, we're very careful, Marilla. And it's so interesting. Two
flashes mean, `Are you there?' Three mean `yes' and four `no.' Five mean,
`Come over as soon as possible, because I have something important to
reveal.' Diana has just signaled five flashes, and I'm really suffering to
know what it is."
"Well, you needn't suffer any longer," said Marilla sarcastically.
"You can go, but you're to be back here in just ten minutes, remember
that."
Anne did remember it and was back in the stipulated time, although
probably no mortal will ever know just what it cost her to confine the
discussion of Diana's important communication within the limits of ten
minutes. But at least she had made good use of them.
"Oh, Marilla, what do you think? You know tomorrow is Diana's
birthday. Well, her mother told her she could ask me to go home with her
from school and stay all night with her. And her cousins are coming over
from Newbridge in a big pung sleigh to go to the Debating Club concert at
the hall tomorrow night. And they are going to take Diana and me to the
concert-if you'll let me go, that is. You will, won't you, Marilla? Oh, I
feel so excited."
"You can calm down then, because you're not going. You're better at
home in your own bed, and as for that club concert, it's all nonsense, and
little girls should not be allowed to go out to such places at all."
"I'm sure the Debating Club is a most respectable affair," pleaded
Anne.
"I'm not saying it isn't. But you're not going to begin gadding about
to concerts and staying out all hours of the night. Pretty doings for
children. I'm surprised at Mrs. Barry's letting Diana go."
"But it's such a very special occasion," mourned Anne, on the verge
of tears. "Diana has only. one birthday in a year. It isn't as if
birthdays were common things, Marilla. Prissy Andrews is going to recite
`Curfew Must Not Ring Tonight.' That is such a good moral piece, Marilla,
I'm sure it would do me lots of good to hear it. And the choir are going
to sing four lovely pathetic songs that are pretty near as good as hymns.
And oh, Marilla, the minister is going to take part; yes, indeed, he is;
he's going to give an address. That will be just about the same thing as a
sermon. Please, mayn't I go, Marilla?"
"You heard what I said, Anne, didn't you? Take off your boots now and
go to bed. It's past eight."
"There's just one more thing, Marilla," said Anne, with the air of
producing the last shot in her locker. "Mrs. Barry told Diana that we
might sleep in the spare-room bed. Think of the honor of your little Anne
being put in the spare-room bed."
"It's an honor you'll have to get along without. Go to bed, Anne, and
don't let me hear another word out of you."
When Anne, with tears rolling over her cheeks, had gone sorrowfully
upstairs, Matthew, who had been apparently sound asleep on the lounge
during the whole dialogue, opened his eyes and said decidedly:
"Well now, Marilla, I think you ought to let Anne go."
"I don't then," retorted Marilla. "Who's bringing this child up,
Matthew, you or me?"
"Well now, you," admitted Matthew.
"Don't interfere then."
"Well now, I ain't interfering. It ain't interfering to have your own
opinion. And my opinion is that you ought to let Anne go."
"You'd think I ought to let Anne go to the moon if she took the
notion, I've no doubt" was Marilla's amiable rejoinder. "I might have let
her spend the night with Diana, if that was all. But I don't approve of
this concert plan. She'd go there and catch cold like as not, and have her
head filled up with nonsense and excitement. It would unsettle her for a
week. I understand that child's disposition and what's good for it better
than you, Matthew."
"I think you ought to let Anne go," repeated Matthew firmly. Argument
was not his strong point, but holding fast to his opinion certainly was.
Marilla gave a gasp of helplessness and took refuge in silence. The next
morning, when Anne was washing the breakfast dishes in the pantry, Matthew
paused on his way out to the barn to say to Marilla again:
"I think you ought to let Anne go, Marilla."
For a moment Marilla looked things not lawful to be uttered. Then she
yielded to the inevitable and said tartly:
"Very well, she can go, since nothing else'll please you."
Anne flew out of the pantry, dripping dishcloth in hand.
"Oh, Marilla, Marilla, say those blessed words again."
"I guess once is enough to say them. This is Matthew's doings and I
wash my hands of it. If you catch pneumonia sleeping in a strange bed or
coming out of that hot hall in the middle of the night, don't blame me,
blame Matthew. Anne Shirley, you're dripping greasy water all over the
floor. I never saw such a careless child."
"Oh, I know I'm a great trial to you, Marilla," said Anne
repentantly. "I make so many mistakes. But then just think of all the
mistakes I don't make, although I might. I'll get some sand and scrub up
the spots before I go to school. Oh, Marilla, my heart was just set on
going to that concert. I never was to a concert in my life, and when the
other girls talk about them in school I feel so out of it. You didn't know
just how I felt about it, but you see Matthew did. Matthew understands me,
and it's so nice to be understood, Marilla."
Anne was too excited to do herself justice as to lessons that morning
in school. Gilbert Blythe spelled her down in class and left her clear out
of sight in mental arithmetic. Anne's consequent humiliation was less than
it might have been, however, in view of the concert and the spare-room
bed. She and Diana talked so constantly about it all day that with a
stricter teacher than Mr. Phillips dire disgrace must inevitably have been
their portion.
Anne felt that she could not have borne it if she had not been going
to the concert, for nothing else was discussed that day in school. The
Avonlea Debating Club, which met fortnightly all winter, had had several
smaller free entertainments; but this was to be a big affair, admission
ten cents, in aid of the library. The Avonlea young people had been
practicing for weeks, and all the scholars were especially interested in
it by reason of older brothers and sisters who were going to take part.
everybody in school over nine years of age expected to go, except Carrie
Sloane, whose father shared Marilla's opinions about small girls going out
to night concerts. Carrie Sloane cried into her grammar all the afternoon
and felt that life was not worth living.
For Anne the real excitement began with the dismissal of school and
increased therefrom in crescendo until it reached to a crash of positive
ecstasy in the concert itself. They had a "perfectly elegant tea". and
then came the delicious occupation of dressing in Diana's little room
upstairs. Diana did Anne's front hair in the new pompadour style and Anne
tied Diana's bows with the especial knack she possessed; and they
experimented with at least half a dozen different ways of arranging their
back hair. At last they were ready, cheeks scarlet and eyes glowing with
excitement.
True, Anne could not help a little pang when she contrasted her plain
black tam and shapeless, tight-sleeved, homemade gray-cloth coat with
Diana's jaunty fur cap and smart little jacket. But she remembered in time
that she had an imagination and could use it.
Then Diana's cousins, the Murrays from Newbridge, came; they all
crowded into the big pung sleigh, among straw and furry robes. Anne
reveled in the drive to the hall, slipping along over the satin-smooth
roads with the snow crisping under the runners. There was a magnificent
sunset, and the snowy hills and deep-blue water of the St. Lawrence Gulf
seemed to rim in the splendor like a huge bowl of pearl and sapphire
brimmed with wine and fire. Tinkles of sleigh bells and distant laughter,
that seemed like the mirth of wood elves, came from every quarter.
"Oh, Diana," breathed Anne, squeezing Diana's mittened hand under the
fur robe, "isn't it all like a beautiful dream? Do I really look the same
as usual? I feel so different that it seems to me it must show in my
looks."
"You look awfully nice," said Diana, who having just received a
compliment from one of her cousins, felt that she ought to pass it on.
"You've got the loveliest color."
The program that night was a series of "thrills" for at least one
listener in the audience, and, as Anne assured Diana, every succeeding
thrill was thrillier than the last. When Prissy Andrews, attired in a new
pink-silk waist with a string of pearls about her smooth white throat and
real carnations in her hair-rumor whispered that the master had sent all
the way to town for them for her-"climbed the slimy ladder, dark without
one ray of light," Anne shivered in luxurious sympathy. when the choir
sang "Far Above the Gentle Daisies" Anne gazed at the ceiling as if it
were frescoed with angels; when Sam Sloane proceeded to explain and
illustrate "How Sockery Set a Hen" Anne laughed until people sitting near
her laughed too, more out of sympathy with her than with amusem*nt at a
selection that was rather threadbare even in Avonlea; and when Mr.
Phillips gave Mark Antony's oration over the dead body of Caesar in the
most heartstirring tones-looking at Prissy Andrews at the end of every
sentence-Anne felt that she could rise and mutiny on the spot if but one
Roman citizen led the way.
Only one number on the program failed to interest her. When Gilbert
Blythe recited "Bingen on the Rhine" Anne picked up Rhoda Murray's library
book and read it until he had finished, when she sat rigidly stiff and
motionless while Diana clapped her hands until they tingled.
It was eleven when they got home, sated with dissipation, but with
the exceeding sweet pleasure of talking it all over still to come.
Everybody seemed asleep and the house was dark and silent. Anne and Diana
tiptoed into the parlor, a long narrow room out of which the spare room
opened. It was pleasantly warm and dimly lighted by the embers of a fire
in the grate.
"Let's undress here," said Diana. "It's so nice and warm."
"Hasn't it been a delightful time?" sighed Anne rapturously. "It must
be splendid to get up and recite there. Do you suppose we will ever be
asked to do it, Diana?"
"Yes, of course, someday. They're always wanting the big scholars to
recite. Gilbert Blythe does often and he's only two years older than us.
Oh, Anne, how could you pretend not to listen to him? When he came to the
line,

"There's another, not a sister,
he looked right down at you."

"Diana," said Anne with dignity, "you are my bosom friend, but I
cannot allow even you to speak to me of that person. Are you ready for
bed? Let's run a race and see who'll get to the bed first."
The suggestion appealed to Diana. The two little whiteclad figures
flew down the long room, through the spareroom door, and bounded on the
bed at the same moment. And then-something-moved beneath them, there was a
gasp and a cry-and somebody said in muffled accents:
"Merciful goodness!"
Anne and Diana were never able to tell just how they got off that bed
and out of the room. They only knew that after one frantic rush they found
themselves tiptoeing shiveringly upstairs.
"Oh, who was it-WHAT was it?" whispered Anne, her teeth chattering
with cold and fright.
"It was Aunt Josephine," said Diana, gasping with laughter. "Oh,
Anne, it was Aunt Josephine, however she came to be there. Oh, and I know
she will be furious. It's dreadful-it's really dreadful-but did you ever
know anything so funny, Anne?"
"Who is your Aunt Josephine?"
"She's father's aunt and she lives in Charlottetown. She's awfully
old-seventy anyhow-and I don't believe she was ever a little girl. We were
expecting her out for a visit, but not so soon. She's awfully prim and
proper and she'll scold dreadfully about this, I know. Well, we'll have to
sleep with Minnie May-and you can't think how she kicks."
Miss Josephine Barry did not appear at the early breakfast the next
morning. Mrs. Barry smiled kindly at the two little girls.
"Did you have a good time last night? I tried to stay awake until you
came home, for I wanted to tell you Aunt Josephine had come and that you
would have to go upstairs after all, but I was so tired I fell asleep. I
hope you didn't disturb your aunt, Diana."
Diana preserved a discreet silence, but she and Anne exchanged
furtive smiles of guilty amusem*nt across the table. Anne hurried home
after breakfast and so remained in blissful ignorance of the disturbance
which presently resulted in the Barry household until the late afternoon,
when she went down to Mrs. Lynde's on an errand for Marilla.
"So you and Diana nearly frightened poor old Miss Barry to death last
night?" said Mrs. Lynde severely, but with a twinkle in her eye. "Mrs.
Barry was here a few minutes ago on her way to Carmody. She's feeling real
worried over it. Old Miss Barry was in a terrible temper when she got up
this morning-and Josephine Barry's temper is no joke, I can tell you that.
She wouldn't speak to Diana at all."
"It wasn't Diana's fault," said Anne contritely. "It was mine. I
suggested racing to see who would get into bed first."
"I knew it!" said Mrs. Lynde, with the exultation of a correct
guesser. "I knew that idea came out of your head. Well, it's made a nice
lot of trouble, that's what. Old Miss Barry came out to stay for a month,
but she declares she won't stay another day and is going right back to
town tomorrow, Sunday and all as it is. She'd have gone today if they
could have taken her. She had promised to pay for a quarter's music
lessons for Diana, but now she is determined to do nothing at all for such
a tomboy. Oh, I guess they had a lively time of it there this morning. The
Barrys must feel cut up. Old Miss Barry is rich and they'd like to keep on
the good side of her. Of course, Mrs. Barry didn't say just that to me,
but I'm a pretty good judge of human nature, that's what."
"I'm such an unlucky girl," mourned Anne. "I'm always getting into
scrapes myself and getting my best friends-people I'd shed my heart's
blood for-into them too. Can you tell me why it is so, Mrs. Lynde?"
"It's because you're too heedless and impulsive, child, that's what.
You never stop to think-whatever comes into your head to say or do you say
or do it without a moment's reflection."
"Oh, but that's the best of it," protested Anne. "Something just
flashes into your mind, so exciting, and you must out with it. If you stop
to think it over you spoil it all. Haven't you never felt that yourself,
Mrs. Lynde?"
No, Mrs. Lynde had not. She shook her head sagely.
"You must learn to think a little, Anne, that's what. The proverb you
need to go by is `Look before you leap'-especially into spare-room beds."
Mrs. Lynde laughed comfortably over her mild joke, but Anne remained
pensive. She saw nothing to laugh at in the situation, which to her eyes
appeared very serious. When she left Mrs. Lynde's she took her way across
the crusted fields to Orchard Slope. Diana met her at the kitchen door.
"Your Aunt Josephine was very cross about it, wasn't she?" whispered
Anne.
"Yes," answered Diana, stifling a giggle with an apprehensive glance
over her shoulder at the closed sittingroom door. "She was fairly dancing
with rage, Anne. Oh, how she scolded. She said I was the worst-behaved
girl she ever saw and that my parents ought to be ashamed of the way they
had brought me up. She says she won't stay and I'm sure I don't care. But
Father and Mother do."
"Why didn't you tell them it was my fault?" demanded Anne.
"It's likely I'd do such a thing, isn't it?" said Diana with just
scorn. "I'm no telltale, Anne Shirley, and anyhow I was just as much to
blame as you."
"Well, I'm going in to tell her myself," said Anne resolutely.
Diana stared.
"Anne Shirley, you'd never! why-she'll eat you alive!"
"Don't frighten me any more than I am frightened," implored Anne.
"I'd rather walk up to a cannon's mouth. But I've got to do it, Diana. It
was my fault and I've got to confess. I've had practice in confessing,
fortunately."
"Well, she's in the room," said Diana. "You can go in if you want to.
I wouldn't dare. And I don't believe you'll do a bit of good."
With this encouragement Anne bearded the lion in its den-that is to
say, walked resolutely up to the sitting-room door and knocked faintly. A
sharp "Come in', followed.
Miss Josephine Barry, thin, prim, and rigid, was knitting fiercely by
the fire, her wrath quite unappeased and her eyes snapping through her
gold-rimmed glasses. She wheeled around in her chair, expecting to see
Diana, and beheld a white-faced girl whose great eyes were brimmed up with
a mixture of desperate courage and shrinking terror.
"Who are you?" demanded Miss Josephine Barry, without ceremony.
"I'm Anne of Green Gables," said the small visitor tremulously,
clasping her hands with her characteristic gesture, "and I've come to
confess, if you please."
"Confess what?"
"That it was all my fault about jumping into bed on you last night. I
suggested it. Diana would never have thought of such a thing, I am sure.
Diana is a very ladylike girl, Miss Barry. So you must see how unjust it
is to blame her."
"Oh, I must, hey? I rather think Diana did her share of the jumping
at least. Such carryings on in a respectable house!"
"But we were only in fun," persisted Anne. "I think you ought to
forgive us, Miss Barry, now that we've apologized. And anyhow, please
forgive Diana and let her have her music lessons. Diana's heart is set on
her music lessons, Miss Barry, and I know too well what it is to set your
heart on a thing and not get it. If you must be cross with anyone, be
cross with me. I've been so used in my early days to having people cross
at me that I can endure it much better than Diana can."
Much of the snap had gone out of the old lady's eyes by this time and
was replaced by a twinkle of amused interest. But she still said severely:
"I don't think it is any excuse for you that you were only in fun.
Little girls never indulged in that kind of fun when I was young. You
don't know what it is to be awakened out of a sound sleep, after a long
and arduous journey, by two great girls coming bounce down on you."
"I don't KNOW, but I can IMAGINE," said Anne eagerly. "I'm sure it
must have been very disturbing. But then, there is our side of it too.
Have you any imagination, Miss. Barry? If you have, just put yourself in
our place. We didn't know there was anybody in that bed and you nearly
scared us to death. It was simply awful the way we felt. And then we
couldn't sleep in the spare room after being promised. I suppose you are
used to sleeping in spare rooms. But just imagine what you would feel like
if you were a little orphan girl who had never had such an honor."
All the snap had gone by this time. Miss Barry actually laughed-a
sound which caused Diana, waiting in speechless anxiety in the kitchen
outside, to give a great gasp of relief.
"I'm afraid my imagination is a little rusty-it's so long since I
used it," she said. "I dare say your claim to sympathy is just as strong
as mine. It all depends on the way we look at it. Sit down here and tell
me about yourself."
"I am very sorry I can't," said Anne firmly. "I would like to,
because you seem like an interesting lady, and you might even be a kindred
spirit although you don't look very much like it. But it is my duty to go
home to Miss Marilla Cuthbert. Miss Marilla Cuthbert is a very kind lady
who has taken me to bring up properly. She is doing her best, but it is
very discouraging work. You must not blame her because I jumped on the
bed. But before I go I do wish you would tell me if you will forgive Diana
and stay just as long as you meant to in Avonlea."
"I think perhaps I will if you will come over and talk to me
occasionally," said Miss Barry.
That evening Miss Barry gave Diana a silver bangle bracelet and told
the senior members of the household that she had unpacked her valise.
"I've made up my mind to stay simply for the sake of getting better
acquainted with that Anne-girl," she said frankly. "She amuses me, and at
my time of life an amusing person is a rarity."
Marilla's only comment when she heard the story was, "I told you so."
This was for Matthew's benefit.
Miss Barry stayed her month out and over. She was a more agreeable
guest than usual, for Anne kept her in good humor. They became firm
friends.
When Miss Barry went away she said:
"Remember, you Anne-girl, when you come to town you're to visit me
and I'll put you in my very sparest spareroom bed to sleep."
"Miss Barry was a kindred spirit, after all," Anne confided to
Marilla. "You wouldn't think so to look at her, but she is. You don't find
it right out at first, as in Matthew's case, but after a while you come to
see it. Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It's
splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world."

20. A Good Imagination Gone Wrong

Spring had come once more to Green Gables-the beautiful capricious,
reluctant Canadian spring, lingering along through April and May in a
succession of sweet, fresh, chilly days, with pink sunsets and miracles of
resurrection and growth. The maples in Lover's Lane were red budded and
little curly ferns pushed up around the Dryad's Bubble. Away up in the
barrens, behind Mr. Silas Sloane's place, the Mayflowers blossomed out,
pink and white stars of sweetness under their brown leaves. All the school
girls and boys had one golden afternoon gathering them, coming home in the
clear, echoing twilight with arms and baskets full of flowery spoil.
"I'm so sorry for people who live in lands where there are no
Mayflowers," said Anne. "Diana says perhaps they have something better,
but there couldn't be anything better than Mayflowers, could there,
Marilla? And Diana says if they don't know what they are like they don't
miss them. But I think that is the saddest thing of all. I think it would
be TRAGIC, Marilla, not to know what Mayflowers are like and not to miss
them. Do you know what I think Mayflowers are, Marilla? I think they must
be the souls of the flowers that died last summer and this is their
heaven. But we had a splendid time today, Marilla. We had our lunch down
in a big mossy hollow by an old well-such a ROMANTIC spot. Charlie Sloane
dared Arty Gillis to jump over it, and Arty did because he wouldn't take a
dare. Nobody would in school. It is very FASHIONABLE to dare. Mr. Phillips
gave all the Mayflowers he found to Prissy Andrews and I heard him to say
`sweets to the sweet.' He got that out of a book, I know; but it shows he
has some imagination. I was offered some Mayflowers too, but I rejected
them with scorn. I can't tell you the person's name because I have vowed
never to let it cross my lips. We made wreaths of the Mayflowers and put
them on our hats; and when the time came to go home we marched in
procession down the road, two by two, with our bouquets and wreaths,
singing `My Home on the Hill.' Oh, it was so thrilling, Marilla. All Mr.
Silas Sloane's folks rushed out to see us and everybody we met on the road
stopped and stared after us. We made a real sensation."
"Not much wonder! Such silly doings!" was Marilla's response.
After the Mayflowers came the violets, and Violet Vale was empurpled
with them. Anne walked through it on her way to school with reverent steps
and worshiping eyes, as if she trod on holy ground.
"Somehow," she told Diana, "when I'm going through here I don't
really care whether Gil-whether anybody gets ahead of me in class or not.
But when I'm up in school it's all different and I care as much as ever.
There's such a lot of different Annes in me. I sometimes think that is why
I'm such a troublesome person. If I was just the one Anne it would be ever
so much more comfortable, but then it wouldn't be half so interesting."
One June evening, when the orchards were pink blossomed again, when
the frogs were singing silverly sweet in the marshes about the head of the
Lake of Shining Waters, and the air was full of the savor of clover fields
and balsamic fir woods, Anne was sitting by her gable window. She had been
studying her lessons, but it had grown too dark to see the book, so she
had fallen into wide-eyed reverie, looking out past the boughs of the Snow
Queen, once more bestarred with its tufts of blossom.
In all essential respects the little gable chamber was unchanged. The
walls were as white, the pincushion as hard, the chairs as stiffly and
yellowly upright as ever. Yet the whole character of the room was altered.
It was full of a new vital, pulsing personality that seemed to pervade it
and to be quite independent of schoolgirl books and dresses and ribbons,
and even of the cracked blue jug full of apple blossoms on the table. It
was as if all the dreams, sleeping and waking, of its vivid occupant had
taken a visible although unmaterial form and had tapestried the bare room
with splendid filmy tissues of rainbow and moonshine. Presently Marilla
came briskly in with some of Anne's freshly ironed school aprons. She hung
them over a chair and sat down with a short sigh. She had had one of her
headaches that afternoon, and although the pain had gone she felt weak and
"tuckered out," as she expressed it. Anne looked at her with eyes limpid
with sympathy.
"I do truly wish I could have had the headache in your place,
Marilla. I would have endured it joyfully for your sake."
"I guess you did your part in attending to the work and letting me
rest," said Marilla. "You seem to have got on fairly well and made fewer
mistakes than usual. Of course it wasn't exactly necessary to starch
Matthew's handkerchiefs! And most people when they put a pie in the oven
to warm up for dinner take it out and eat it when it gets hot instead of
leaving it to be burned to a crisp. But that doesn't seem to be your way
evidently."
Headaches always left Marilla somewhat sarcastic.
"Oh, I'm so sorry," said Anne penitently. "I never thought about that
pie from the moment I put it in the oven till now, although I felt
INSTINCTIVELY that there was something missing on the dinner table. I was
firmly resolved, when you left me in charge this morning, not to imagine
anything, but keep my thoughts on facts. I did pretty well until I put the
pie in, and then an irresistible temptation came to me to imagine I was an
enchanted princess shut up in a lonely tower with a handsome knight riding
to my rescue on a coal-black steed. So that is how I came to forget the
pie. I didn't know I starched the handkerchiefs. All the time I was
ironing I was trying to think of a name for a new island Diana and I have
discovered up the brook. It's the most ravishing spot, Marilla. There are
two maple trees on it and the brook flows right around it. At last it
struck me that it would be splendid to call it Victoria Island because we
found it on the Queen's birthday. Both Diana and I are very loyal. But I'm
sorry about that pie and the handkerchiefs. I wanted to be extra good
today because it's an anniversary. Do you remember what happened this day
last year, Marilla?"
"No, I can't think of anything special."
"Oh, Marilla, it was the day I came to Green Gables. I shall never
forget it. It was the turning point in my life. Of course it wouldn't seem
so important to you. I've been here for a year and I've been so happy. Of
course, I've had my troubles, but one can live down troubles. Are you
sorry you kept me, Marilla?"
"No, I can't say I'm sorry," said Marilla, who sometimes wondered how
she could have lived before Anne came to Green Gables, "no, not exactly
sorry. If you've finished your lessons, Anne, I want you to run over and
ask Mrs. Barry if she'll lend me Diana's apron pattern."
"Oh-it's-it's too dark," cried Anne.
"Too dark? Why, it's only twilight. And goodness knows you've gone
over often enough after dark."
"I'll go over early in the morning," said Anne eagerly. "I'll get up
at sunrise and go over, Marilla."
"What has got into your head now, Anne Shirley? I want that pattern
to cut out your new apron this evening. Go at once and be smart too."
"I'll have to go around by the road, then," said Anne, taking up her
hat reluctantly.
"Go by the road and waste half an hour! I'd like to catch you!"
"I can't go through the Haunted Wood, Marilla," cried Anne
desperately.
Marilla stared.
"The Haunted Wood! Are you crazy? What under the canopy is the
Haunted Wood?"
"The spruce wood over the brook," said Anne in a whisper.
"Fiddlesticks! There is no such thing as a haunted wood anywhere. Who
has been telling you such stuff?"
"Nobody," confessed Anne. "Diana and I just imagined the wood was
haunted. All the places around here are so-so-COMMONPLACE. We just got
this up for our own amusem*nt. We began it in April. A haunted wood is so
very romantic, Marilla. We chose the spruce grove because it's so gloomy.
Oh, we have imagined the most harrowing things. There's a white lady walks
along the brook just about this time of the night and wrings her hands and
utters wailing cries. She appears when there is to be a death in the
family. And the ghost of a little murdered child haunts the corner up by
Idlewild; it creeps up behind you and lays its cold fingers on your
hand-so. Oh, Marilla, it gives me a shudder to think of it. And there's a
headless man stalks up and down the path and skeletons glower at you
between the boughs. Oh, Marilla, I wouldn't go through the Haunted Wood
after dark now for anything. I'd be sure that white things would reach out
from behind the trees and grab me."
"Did ever anyone hear the like!" ejacul*ted Marilla, who had
listened in dumb amazement. "Anne Shirley, do you mean to tell
me you believe all that wicked nonsense of your own imagination?"
"Not believe EXACTLY," faltered Anne. "At least, I don't believe it
in daylight. But after dark, Marilla, it's different. That is when ghosts
walk."
"There are no such things as ghosts, Anne."
"Oh, but there are, Marilla," cried Anne eagerly. "I know people who
have seen them. And they are respectable people. Charlie Sloane says that
his grandmother saw his grandfather driving home the cows one night after
he'd been buried for a year. You know Charlie Sloane's grandmother
wouldn't tell a story for anything. She's a very religious woman. And Mrs.
Thomas's father was pursued home one night by a lamb of fire with its head
cut off hanging by a strip of skin. He said he knew it was the spirit of
his brother and that it was a warning he would die within nine days. He
didn't, but he died two years after, so you see it was really true. And
Ruby Gillis says-"
"Anne Shirley," interrupted Marilla firmly, "I never want to hear you
talking in this fashion again. I've had my doubts about that imagination
of yours right along, and if this is going to be the outcome of it, I
won't countenance any such doings. You'll go right over to Barry's, and
you'll go through that spruce grove, just for a lesson and a warning to
you. And never let me hear a word out of your head about haunted woods
again."
Anne might plead and cry as she liked-and did, for her terror was
very real. Her imagination had run away with her and she held the spruce
grove in mortal dread after nightfall. But Marilla was inexorable. She
marched the shrinking ghostseer down to the spring and ordered her to
proceed straightaway over the bridge and into the dusky retreats of
wailing ladies and headless specters beyond.
"Oh, Marilla, how can you be so cruel?" sobbed Anne. "What would you
feel like if a white thing did snatch me up and carry me off?"
"I'll risk it," said Marilla unfeelingly. "You know I always mean
what I say. I'll cure you of imagining ghosts into places. March, now."
Anne marched. That is, she stumbled over the bridge and went
shuddering up the horrible dim path beyond. Anne never forgot that walk.
Bitterly did she repent the license she had given to her imagination. The
goblins of her fancy lurked in every shadow about her, reaching out their
cold, fleshless hands to grasp the terrified small girl who had called
them into being. A white strip of birch bark blowing up from the hollow
over the brown floor of the grove made her heart stand still. The
long-drawn wail of two old boughs rubbing against each other brought out
the perspiration in beads on her forehead. The swoop of bats in the
darkness over her was as the wings of unearthly creatures. When she
reached Mr. William Bell's field she fled across it as if pursued by an
army of white things, and arrived at the Barry kitchen door so out of
breath that she could hardly gasp out her request for the apron pattern.
Diana was away so that she had no excuse to linger. The dreadful return
journey had to be faced. Anne went back over it with shut eyes, preferring
to take the risk of dashing her brains out among the boughs to that of
seeing a white thing. When she finally stumbled over the log bridge she
drew one long shivering breath of relief.
"Well, so nothing caught you?" said Marilla unsympathetically.
"Oh, Mar-Marilla," chattered Anne, "I'll b-b-be contt-tented with
c-c-commonplace places after this."

21. A New Departure in Flavorings

"Dear me, there is nothing but meetings and partings in this world,
as Mrs. Lynde says," remarked Anne plaintively, putting her slate and
books down on the kitchen table on the last day of June and wiping her red
eyes with a very damp handkerchief. "Wasn't it fortunate, Marilla, that I
took an extra handkerchief to school today? I had a presentiment that it
would be needed."
"I never thought you were so fond of Mr. Phillips that you'd require
two handkerchiefs to dry your tears just because he was going away," said
Marilla.
"I don't think I was crying because I was really so very fond of him,"
reflected Anne. "I just cried because all the others did. It was Ruby
Gillis started it. Ruby Gillis has always declared she hated Mr. Phillips,
but just as soon as he got up to make his farewell speech she burst into
tears. Then all the girls began to cry, one after the other. I tried to
hold out, Marilla. I tried to remember the time Mr. Phillips made me sit
with Gil-with a, boy; and the time he spelled my name without an e on the
blackboard; and how he said I was the worst dunce he ever saw at geometry
and laughed at my spelling; and all the times he had been so horrid and
sarcastic; but somehow I couldn't, Marilla, and I just had to cry too.
Jane Andrews has been talking for a month about how glad she'd be when Mr.
Phillips went away and she declared she'd never shed a tear. Well, she was
worse than any of us and had to borrow a handkerchief from her brother-of
course the boys didn't cry-because she hadn't brought one of her own, not
expecting to need it. Oh, Marilla, it was heartrending. Mr. Phillips made
such a beautiful farewell speech beginning, `The time has come for us to
part.' It was very affecting. And he had tears in his eyes too, Marilla.
Oh, I felt dreadfully sorry and remorseful for all the times I'd talked in
school and drawn pictures of him on my slate and made fun of him and
Prissy. I can tell you I wished I'd been a model pupil like Minnie
Andrews. She hadn't anything on her conscience. The girls cried all the
way home from school. Carrie Sloane kept saying every few minutes, `The
time has come for us to part,' and that would start us off again whenever
we were in any danger of cheering up. I do feel dreadfully sad, Marilla.
But one can't feel quite in the depths of despair with two months'
vacation before them, can they, Marilla? And besides, we met the new
minister and his wife coming from the station. For all I was feeling so
bad about Mr. Phillips going away I couldn't help taking a little interest
in a new minister, could I? His wife is very pretty. Not exactly regally
lovely, of course-it wouldn't do, I suppose, for a minister to have a
regally lovely wife, because it might set a bad example. Mrs. Lynde says
the minister's wife over at Newbridge sets a very bad example because she
dresses so fashionably. Our new minister's wife was dressed in blue muslin
with lovely puffed sleeves and a hat trimmed with roses. Jane Andrews said
she thought puffed sleeves were too worldly for a minister's wife, but I
didn't make any such uncharitable remark, Marilla, because I know what it
is to long for puffed sleeves. Besides, she's only been a minister's wife
for a little while, so one should make allowances, shouldn't they? They
are going to board with Mrs. Lynde until the manse is ready."
If Marilla, in going down to Mrs. Lynde's that evening, was actuated
by any motive save her avowed one of returning the quilting frames she had
borrowed the preceding winter, it was an amiable weakness shared by most
of the Avonlea people. Many a thing Mrs. Lynde had lent, sometimes never
expecting to see it again, came home that night in charge of the borrowers
thereof. A new minister, and moreover a minister with a wife, was a lawful
object of curiosity in a quiet little country settlement where sensations
were few and far between.
Old Mr. Bentley, the minister whom Anne had found lacking in
imagination, had been pastor of Avonlea for eighteen years. He was a
widower when he came, and a widower he remained, despite the fact that
gossip regularly married him to this, that, or the other one, every year
of his sojourn. In the preceding February he had resigned his charge and
departed amid the regrets of his people, most of whom had the affection
born of long intercourse for their good old minister in spite of his
shortcomings as an orator. Since then the Avonlea church had enjoyed a
variety of religious dissipation in listening to the many and various
candidates and "supplies" who came Sunday after Sunday to preach on trial.
These stood or fell by the judgment of the fathers and mothers in Israel;
but a certain small, red-haired girl who sat meekly in the corner of the
old Cuthbert pew also had her opinions about them and discussed the same
in full with Matthew, Marilla always declining from principle to criticize
ministers in any shape or form.
"I don't think Mr. Smith would have done, Matthew" was Anne's final
summing up. "Mrs. Lynde says his delivery was so poor, but I think his
worst fault was just like Mr. Bentley's-he had no imagination. And Mr.
Terry had too much; he let it run away with him just as I did mine in the
matter of the Haunted Wood. Besides, Mrs. Lynde says his theology wasn't
sound. Mr. Gresham was a very good man and a very religious man, but he
told too many funny stories and made the people laugh in church; he was
undignified, and you must have some dignity about a minister, mustn't you,
Matthew? I thought Mr. Marshall was decidedly attractive; but Mrs. Lynde
says he isn't married, or even engaged, because she made special inquiries
about him, and she says it would never do to have a young unmarried
minister in Avonlea, because he might marry in the congregation and that
would make trouble. Mrs. Lynde is a very farseeing woman, isn't she,
Matthew? I'm very glad they've called Mr. Allan. I liked him because his
sermon was interesting and he prayed as if he meant it and not just as if
he did it because he was in the habit of it. Mrs. Lynde says he isn't
perfect, but she says she supposes we couldn't expect a perfect minister
for seven hundred and fifty dollars a year, and anyhow his theology is
sound because she questioned him thoroughly on all the points of doctrine.
And she knows his wife's people and they are most respectable and the
women are all good housekeepers. Mrs. Lynde says that sound doctrine in
the man and good housekeeping in the woman make an ideal combination for a
minister's family."
The new minister and his wife were a young, pleasant-faced couple,
still on their honeymoon, and full of all good and beautiful enthusiasms
for their chosen lifework. Avonlea opened its heart to them from the
start. Old and young liked the frank, cheerful young man with his high
ideals, and the bright, gentle little lady who assumed the mistress-ship
of the manse. With Mrs. Allan Anne fell promptly and wholeheartedly in
love. She had discovered another kindred spirit.
"Mrs. Allan is perfectly lovely," she announced one Sunday afternoon.
"She's taken our class and she's a splendid teacher. She said right away
she didn't think it was fair for the teacher to ask all the questions, and
you know , Marilla, that is exactly what I've always thought. She said we
could ask her any question we liked and I asked ever so many. I'm good at
asking questions, Marilla."
"I believe you" was Marilla's emphatic comment.
"Nobody else asked any except Ruby Gillis, and she asked if there was
to be a Sunday-school picnic this summer. I didn't think that was a very
proper question to ask because it hadn't any connection with the
lesson-the lesson was about Daniel in the lions' den-but Mrs. Allan just
smiled and said she thought there would be. Mrs. Allan has a lovely smile;
she has such EXQUISITE dimples in her cheeks. I wish I had dimples in my
cheeks, Marilla. I'm not half so skinny as I was when I came here, but I
have no dimples yet. If I had perhaps I could influence people for good.
Mrs. Allan said we ought always to try to influence other people for good.
She talked so nice about everything. I never knew before that religion was
such a cheerful thing. I always thought it was kind of melancholy, but
Mrs. Allan's isn't, and I'd like to be a Christian if I could be one like
her. I wouldn't want to be one like Mr. Superintendent Bell."
"It's very naughty of you to speak so about Mr. Bell," said Marilla
severely. "Mr. Bell is a real good man."
"Oh, of course he's good," agreed Anne, "but he doesn't seem to get
any comfort out of it. If I could be good I'd dance and sing all day
because I was glad of it. I suppose Mrs. Allan is too old to dance and
sing and of course it wouldn't be dignified in a minister's wife. But I
can just feel she's glad she's a Christian and that she'd be one even if
she could get to heaven without it."
"I suppose we must have Mr. and Mrs. Allan up to tea someday soon,"
said Marilla reflectively. "They've been most everywhere but here. Let me
see. Next Wednesday would be a good time to have them. But don't say a
word to Matthew about it, for if he knew they were coming he'd find some
excuse to be away that day. He'd got so used to Mr. Bentley he didn't mind
him, but he's going to find it hard to get acquainted with a new minister,
and a new minister's wife will frighten him to death."
"I'll be as secret as the dead," assured Anne. "But oh, Marilla, will
you let me make a cake for the occasion? I'd love to do something for Mrs.
Allan, and you know I can make a pretty good cake by this time."
"You can make a layer cake," promised Marilla.
Monday and Tuesday great preparations went on at Green Gables. Having
the minister and his wife to tea was a serious and important undertaking,
and Marilla was determined not to be eclipsed by any of the Avonlea
housekeepers. Anne was wild with excitement and delight. She talked it all
over with Diana Tuesday night in the twilight, as they sat on the big red
stones by the Dryad's Bubble and made rainbows in the water with little
twigs dipped in fir balsam.
"Everything is ready, Diana, except my cake which I'm to make in the
morning, and the baking-powder biscuits which Marilla will make just
before teatime. I assure you, Diana, that Marilla and I have had a busy
two days of it. It's such a responsibility having a minister's family to
tea. I never went through such an experience before. You should just see
our pantry. It's a sight to behold. We're going to have jellied chicken
and cold tongue. We're to have two kinds of jelly, red and yellow, and
whipped cream and lemon pie, and cherry pie, and three kinds of cookies,
and fruit cake, and Marilla's famous yellow plum preserves that she keeps
especially for ministers, and pound cake and layer cake, and biscuits as
aforesaid; and new bread and old both, in case the minister is dyspeptic
and can't eat new. Mrs. Lynde says minister are dyspeptic, but I don't
think Mr. Allan has been a minister long enough for it to have had a bad
effect on him. I just grow cold when I think of my layer cake. Oh, Diana,
what if it shouldn't be good! I dreamed last night that I was chased all
around by a fearful goblin with a big layer cake for a head."
"It'll be good, all right," assured Diana, who was a very comfortable
sort of friend. "I'm sure that piece of the one you made that we had for
lunch in Idlewild two weeks ago was perfectly elegant."
"Yes; but cakes have such a terrible habit of turning out bad just
when you especially want them to be good," sighed Anne, setting a
particularly well-balsamed twig afloat. "However, I suppose I shall just
have to trust to Providence and be careful to put in the flour. Oh, look,
Diana, what a lovely rainbow! Do you suppose the dryad will come out after
we go away and take it for a scarf?"
"You know there is no such thing as a dryad," said Diana. Diana's
mother had found out about the Haunted Wood and had been decidedly angry
over it. As a result Diana had abstained from any further imitative
flights of imagination and did not think it prudent to cultivate a spirit
of belief even in harmless dryads.
"But it's so easy to imagine there is," said Anne. "Every night
before I go to bed, I look out of my window and wonder if the dryad is
really sitting here, combing her locks with the spring for a mirror.
Sometimes I look for her footprints in the dew in the morning. Oh, Diana,
don't give up your faith in the dryad!"
Wednesday morning came. Anne got up at sunrise because she was too
excited to sleep. She had caught a severe cold in the head by reason of
her dabbling in the spring on the preceding evening; but nothing short of
absolute pneumonia could have quenched her interest in culinary matters
that morning. After breakfast she proceeded to make her cake. When she
finally shut the oven door upon it she drew a long breath.
"I'm sure I haven't forgotten anything this time, Marilla. But do you
think it will rise? Just suppose perhaps the baking powder isn't good? I
used it out of the new can. And Mrs. Lynde says you can never be sure of
getting good baking powder nowadays when everything is so adulterated.
Mrs. Lynde says the Government ought to take the matter up, but she says
we'll never see the day when a Tory Government will do it. Marilla, what
if that cake doesn't rise?"
"We'll have plenty without it" was Marilla's unimpassioned way of
looking at the subject.
The cake did rise, however, and came out of the oven as light and
feathery as golden foam. Anne, flushed with delight, clapped it together
with layers of ruby jelly and, in imagination, saw Mrs. Allan eating it
and possibly asking for another piece!
"You'll be using the best tea set, of course, Marilla," she said.
"Can I fix the table with ferns and wild roses?"
"I think that's all nonsense," sniffed Marilla. "In my opinion it's
the eatables that matter and not flummery decorations."
"Mrs. Barry had HER table decorated," said Anne, who was not entirely
guiltless of the wisdom of the serpent, "and the minister paid her an
elegant compliment. He said it was a feast for the eye as well as the
palate."
"Well, do as you like," said Marilla, who was quite determined not to
be surpassed by Mrs. Barry or anybody else. "Only mind you leave enough
room for the dishes and the food."
Anne laid herself out to decorate in a manner and after a fashion
that should leave Mrs. Barry's nowhere. Having abundance of roses and
ferns and a very artistic taste of her own, she made that tea table such a
thing of beauty that when the minister and his wife sat down to it they
exclaimed in chorus over it loveliness.
"It's Anne's doings," said Marilla, grimly just; and Anne felt that
Mrs. Allan's approving smile was almost too much happiness for this world.
Matthew was there, having been inveigled into the party only goodness
and Anne knew how. He had been in such a state of shyness and nervousness
that Marilla had given him up in despair, but Anne took him in hand so
successfully that he now sat at the table in his best clothes and white
collar and talked to the minister not uninterestingly. He never said a
word to Mrs. Allan, but that perhaps was not to be expected.
All went merry as a marriage bell until Anne's layer cake was passed.
Mrs. Allan, having already been helped to a bewildering variety, declined
it. But Marilla, seeing the disappointment on Anne's face, said smilingly:
"Oh, you must take a piece of this, Mrs. Allan. Anne made it on
purpose for you."
"In that case I must sample it," laughed Mrs. Allan, helping herself
to a plump triangle, as did also the minister and Marilla.
Mrs. Allan took a mouthful of hers and a most peculiar expression
crossed her face; not a word did she say, however, but steadily ate away
at it. Marilla saw the expression and hastened to taste the cake.
"Anne Shirley!" she exclaimed, "what on earth did you put into that
cake?"
"Nothing but what the recipe said, Marilla," cried Anne with a look
of anguish. "Oh, isn't it all right?"
"All right! It's simply horrible. Mr. Allan, don't try to eat it.
Anne, taste it yourself. What flavoring did you use?"
"Vanilla," said Anne, her face scarlet with modification after
tasting the cake. "Only vanilla. Oh, Marilla, it must have been the baking
powder. I had my suspicions of that bak-"
"Baking powder fiddlesticks! Go and bring me the bottle of vanilla
you used."
Anne fled to the pantry and returned with a small bottle partially
filled with a brown liquid and labeled yellowly, "Best Vanilla."
Marilla took it, uncorked it, smelled it.
"Mercy on us, Anne, you've flavored that cake with ANODYNE LINIMENT.
I broke the liniment bottle last week and poured what was left into an old
empty vanilla bottle. I suppose it's partly my fault-I should have warned
you-but for pity's sake why couldn't you have smelled it?"
Anne dissolved into tears under this double disgrace.
"I couldn't-I had such a cold!" and with this she fairly fled to the
gable chamber, where she cast herself on the bed and wept as one who
refuses to be comforted.
Presently a light step sounded on the stair and somebody entered the
room.
"Oh, Marilla," sobbed Anne, without looking up, "I'm disgraced
forever. I shall never be able to live this down. It will get out-things
always do get out in Avonlea. Diana will ask me how my cake turned out and
I shall have to tell her the truth. I shall always be pointed at as the
girl who flavored a cake with anodyne liniment. Gil-the boys in school
will never get over laughing at it. Oh, Marilla, if you have a spark of
Christian pity don't tell me that I must go down and wash the dishes after
this. I'll wash them when the minister and his wife are gone, but I cannot
ever look Mrs. Allan in the face again. Perhaps she'll think I tried to
poison her. Mrs. Lynde says she knows an orphan girl who tried to poison
her benefactor. But the liniment isn't poisonous. It's meant to be taken
internally-although not in cakes. Won't you tell Mrs. Allan so, Marilla?"
"Suppose you jump up and tell her so yourself," said a merry voice.
Anne flew up, to find Mrs. Allan standing by her bed, surveying her
with laughing eyes.
"My dear little girl, you musn't cry like this," she said, genuinely
disturbed by Anne's tragic face. "Why, it's all just a funny mistake that
anybody might make."
"Oh, no, it takes me to make such a mistake," said Anne forlornly.
"And I wanted to have that cake so nice for you, Mrs. Allan."
"Yes, I know, dear. And I assure you I appreciate your kindness and
thoughtfulness just as much as if it had turned out all right. Now, you
mustn't cry any more, but come down with me and show me your flower
garden. Miss Cuthbert tells me you have a little plot all your own. I want
to see it, for I'm very much interested in flowers."
Anne permitted herself to be led down and comforted, reflecting that
it was really providential that Mrs. Allan was a kindred spirit. Nothing
more was said about the liniment cake, and when the guests went away Anne
found that she had enjoyed the evening more than could have been expected,
considering that terrible incident. Nevertheless, she sighed deeply.
"Marilla, isn't it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no
mistakes in it yet?"
"I'll warrant you'll make plenty in it," said Marilla. "I never saw
your beat for making mistakes, Anne."
"Yes, and well I know it," admitted Anne mournfully. "But have you
ever noticed one encouraging thing about me, Marilla? I never make the
same mistake twice."
"I don't know as that's much benefit when you're always making new
ones."
"Oh, don't you see, Marilla? There must be a limit to the mistakes
one person can make, and when I get to the end of them, then I'll be
through with them. That's a very comforting thought."
"Well, you'd better go and give that cake to the pigs," said Marilla.
"It isn't fit for any human to eat, not even Jerry Boute."

22. Anne is Invited Out to Tea

"And what are your eyes popping out of your head about. Now?" asked
Marilla, when Anne had just come in from a run to the post office. "Have
you discovered another kindred spirit?" Excitement hung around Anne like a
garment, shone in her eyes, kindled in every feature. She had come dancing
up the lane, like a wind-blown sprite, through the mellow sunshine and
lazy shadows of the August evening.
"No, Marilla, but oh, what do you think? I am invited to tea at the
manse tomorrow afternoon! Mrs. Allan left the letter for me at the post
office. Just look at it, Marilla. `Miss Anne Shirley, Green Gables.' That
is the first time I was ever called `Miss.' Such a thrill as it gave me! I
shall cherish it forever among my choicest treasures."
"Mrs. Allan told me she meant to have all the members of her
Sunday-school class to tea in turn," said Marilla, regarding the wonderful
event very coolly. "You needn't get in such a fever over it. Do learn to
take things calmly, child."
For Anne to take things calmly would have been to change her nature.
All "spirit and fire and dew," as she was, the pleasures and pains of life
came to her with trebled intensity. Marilla felt this and was vaguely
troubled over it, realizing that the ups and downs of existence would
probably bear hardly on this impulsive soul and not sufficiently
understanding that the equally great capacity for delight might more than
compensate. Therefore Marilla conceived it to be her duty to drill Anne
into a tranquil uniformity of disposition as impossible and alien to her
as to a dancing sunbeam in one of the brook shallows. She did not make
much headway, as she sorrowfully admitted to herself. The downfall of some
dear hope or plan plunged Anne into "deeps of affliction." The fulfillment
thereof exalted her to dizzy realms of delight. Marilla had almost begun
to despair of ever fashioning this waif of the world into her model little
girl of demure manners and prim deportment. Neither would she have
believed that she really liked Anne much better as she was.
Anne went to bed that night speechless with misery because Matthew
had said the wind was round northeast and he feared it would be a rainy
day tomorrow. The rustle of the poplar leaves about the house worried her,
it sounded so like pattering raindrops, and the full, faraway roar of the
gulf, to which she listened delightedly at other times, loving its
strange, sonorous, haunting rhythm, now seemed like a prophecy of storm
and disaster to a small maiden who particularly wanted a fine day. Anne
thought that the morning would never come.
But all things have an end, even nights before the day on which you
are invited to take tea at the manse. The morning, in spite of Matthew's
predictions, was fine and Anne's spirits soared to their highest.
"Oh, Marilla, there is something in me today that makes me just love
everybody I see," she exclaimed as she washed the breakfast dishes. "You
don't know how good I feel! Wouldn't it be nice if it could last? I
believe I could be a model child if I were just invited out to tea every
day. But oh, Marilla, it's a solemn occasion too. I feel so anxious. What
if I shouldn't behave properly? You know I never had tea at a manse
before, and I'm not sure that I know all the rules of etiquette, although
I've been studying the rules given in the Etiquette Department of the
Family Herald ever since I came here. I'm so afraid I'll do something
silly or forget to do something I should do. Would it be good manners to
take a second helping of anything if you wanted to VERY much?"
"The trouble with you, Anne, is that you're thinking too much about
yourself. You should just think of Mrs. Allan and what would be nicest and
most agreeable to her," said Marilla, hitting for once in her life on a
very sound and pithy piece of advice. Anne instantly realized this.
"You are right, Marilla. I'll try not to think about myself at all."
Anne evidently got through her visit without any serious breach of
"etiquette," for she came home through the twilight, under a great,
high-sprung sky gloried over with trails of saffron and rosy cloud, in a
beatified state of mind and told Marilla all about it happily, sitting on
the big red-sandstone slab at the kitchen door with her tired curly head
in Marilla's gingham lap.
A cool wind was blowing down over the long harvest fields from the
rims of firry western hills and whistling through the poplars. One clear
star hung over the orchard and the fireflies were flitting over in Lover's
Lane, in and out among the ferns and rustling boughs. Anne watched them as
she talked and somehow felt that wind and stars and fireflies were all
tangled up together into something unutterably sweet and enchanting.
"Oh, Marilla, I've had a most FASCINATING time. I feel that I have
not lived in vain and I shall always feel like that even if I should never
be invited to tea at a manse again. When I got there Mrs. Allan met me at
the door. She was dressed in the sweetest dress of pale-pink organdy, with
dozens of frills and elbow sleeves, and she looked just like a seraph. I
really think I'd like to be a minister's wife when I grow up, Marilla. A
minister mightn't mind my red hair because he wouldn't be thinking of such
worldly things. But then of course one would have to be naturally good and
I'll never be that, so I suppose there's no use in thinking about it. Some
people are naturally good, you know, and others are not. I'm one of the
others. Mrs. Lynde says I'm full of original sin. No matter how hard I try
to be good I can never make such a success of it as those who are
naturally good. It's a good deal like geometry, I expect. But don't you
think the trying so hard ought to count for something? Mrs. Allan is one
of the naturally good people. I love her passionately. You know there are
some people, like Matthew and Mrs. Allan that you can love right off
without any trouble. And there are others, like Mrs. Lynde, that you have
to try very hard to love. You know you OUGHT to love them because they
know so much and are such active workers in the church, but you have to
keep reminding yourself of it all the time or else you forget. There was
another little girl at the manse to tea, from the White Sands Sunday
school. Her name was Laurette Bradley, and she was a very nice little
girl. Not exactly a kindred spirit, you know, but still very nice. We had
an elegant tea, and I think I kept all the rules of etiquette pretty well.
After tea Mrs. Allan played and sang and she got Lauretta and me to sing
too. Mrs. Allan says I have a good voice and she says I must sing in the
Sunday-school choir after this. You can't think how I was thrilled at the
mere thought. I've longed so to sing in the Sunday-school choir, as Diana
does, but I feared it was an honor I could never aspire to. Lauretta had
to go home early because there is a big concert in the White Sands Hotel
tonight and her sister is to recite at it. Lauretta says that the
Americans at the hotel give a concert every fortnight in aid of the
Charlottetown hospital, and they ask lots of the White Sands people to
recite. Lauretta said she expected to be asked herself someday. I just
gazed at her in awe. After she had gone Mrs. Allan and I had a
heart-to-heart talk. I told her everything-about Mrs. Thomas and the twins
and Katie Maurice and Violetta and coming to Green Gables and my troubles
over geometry. And would you believe it, Marilla? Mrs. Allan told me she
was a dunce at geometry too. You don't know how that encouraged me. Mrs.
Lynde came to the manse just before I left, and what do you think,
Marilla? The trustees have hired a new teacher and it's a lady. Her name
is Miss Muriel Stacy. Isn't that a romantic name? Mrs. Lynde says they've
never had a female teacher in Avonlea before and she thinks it is a
dangerous innovation. But I think it will be splendid to have a lady
teacher, and I really don't see how I'm going to live through the two
weeks before school begins. I'm so impatient to see her."

23. Anne Comes to Grief in an Affair of Honor

Anne had to live through more than two weeks, as it happened. Almost
a month having elapsed since the liniment cake episode, it was high time
for her to get into fresh trouble of some sort, little mistakes, such as
absentmindedly emptying a pan of skim milk into a basket of yarn balls in
the pantry instead of into the pigs' bucket, and walking clean over the
edge of the log bridge into the brook while wrapped in imaginative
reverie, not really being worth counting.
A week after the tea at the manse Diana Barry gave a party.
"Small and select," Anne assured Marilla. "Just the girls in our
class."
They had a very good time and nothing untoward happened until after
tea, when they found themselves in the Barry garden, a little tired of all
their games and ripe for any enticing form of mischief which might present
itself. This presently took the form of "daring."
Daring was the fashionable amusem*nt among the Avonlea small fry just
then. It had begun among the boys, but soon spread to the girls, and all
the silly things that were done in Avonlea that summer because the doers
thereof were "dared" to do them would fill a book by themselves.
First of all Carrie Sloane dared Ruby Gillis to climb to a certain
point in the huge old willow tree before the front door; which Ruby
Gillis, albeit in mortal dread of the fat green caterpillars with which
said tree was infested and with the fear of her mother before her eyes if
she should tear her new muslin dress, nimbly did, to the discomfiture of
the aforesaid Carrie Sloane.
Then Josie Pye dared Jane Andrews to hop on her left leg around the
garden without stopping once or putting her right foot to the ground;
which Jane Andrews gamely tried to do, but gave out at the third corner
and had to confess herself defeated.
Josie's triumph being rather more pronounced than good taste
permitted, Anne Shirley dared her to walk along the top of the board fence
which bounded the garden to the east. Now, to "walk" board fences requires
more skill and steadiness of head and heel than one might suppose who has
never tried it. But Josie Pye, if deficient in some qualities that make
for popularity, had at least a natural and inborn gift, duly cultivated,
for walking board fences. Josie walked the Barry fence with an airy
unconcern which seemed to imply that a little thing like that wasn't worth
a "dare." Reluctant admiration greeted her exploit, for most of the other
girls could appreciate it, having suffered many things themselves in their
efforts to walk fences. Josie descended from her perch, flushed with
victory, and darted a defiant glance at Anne.
Anne tossed her red braids.
"I don't think it's such a very wonderful thing to walk a little,
low, board fence," she said. "I knew a girl in Marysville who could walk
the ridgepole of a roof."
"I don't believe it," said Josie flatly. "I don't believe anybody
could walk a ridgepole. YOU couldn't, anyhow."
"Couldn't I?" cried Anne rashly.
"Then I dare you to do it," said Josie defiantly. "I dare you to
climb up there and walk the ridgepole of Mr. Barry's kitchen roof."
Anne turned pale, but there was clearly only one thing to be done.
She walked toward the house, where a ladder was leaning against the
kitchen roof. All the fifth-class girls said, "Oh!" partly in excitement,
partly in dismay.
"Don't you do it, Anne," entreated Diana. "You'll fall off and be
killed. Never mind Josie Pye. It isn't fair to dare anybody to do anything
so dangerous."
"I must do it. My honor is at stake," said Anne solemnly. "I shall
walk that ridgepole, Diana, or perish in the attempt. If I am killed you
are to have my pearl bead ring."
Anne climbed the ladder amid breathless silence, gained the
ridgepole, balanced herself uprightly on that precarious footing, and
started to walk along it, dizzily conscious that she was uncomfortably
high up in the world and that walking ridgepoles was not a thing in which
your imagination helped you out much. Nevertheless, she managed to take
several steps before the catastrophe came. Then she swayed, lost her
balance, stumbled, staggered, and fell, sliding down over the sun-baked
roof and crashing off it through the tangle of Virginia creeper beneathall
before the dismayed circle below could give a simultaneous, terrified
shriek.
If Anne had tumbled off the roof on the side up which she had
ascended Diana would probably have fallen heir to the pearl bead ring then
and there. Fortunately she fell on the other side, where the roof extended
down over the porch so nearly to the ground that a fall therefrom was a
much less serious thing. Nevertheless, when Diana and the other girls had
rushed frantically around the house-except Ruby Gillis, who remained as if
rooted to the ground and went into hysterics-they found Anne lying all
white and limp among the wreck and ruin of the Virginia creeper.
"Anne, are you killed?" shrieked Diana, throwing herself on her knees
beside her friend. "Oh, Anne, dear Anne, speak just one word to me and
tell me if you're killed."
To the immense relief of all the girls, and especially of Josie Pye,
who, in spite of lack of imagination, had been seized with horrible
visions of a future branded as the girl who was the cause of Anne
Shirley's early and tragic death, Anne sat dizzily up and answered
uncertainly:
"No, Diana, I am not killed, but I think I am rendered unconscious."
"Where?" sobbed Carrie Sloane. "Oh, where, Anne?" Before Anne could
answer Mrs. Barry appeared on the scene. At sight of her Anne tried to
scramble to her feet, but sank back again with a sharp little cry of pain.
"What's the matter? Where have you hurt yourself?" demanded Mrs.
Barry.
"My ankle," gasped Anne. "Oh, Diana, please find your father and ask
him to take me home. I know I can never walk there. And I'm sure I
couldn't hop so far on one foot when Jane couldn't even hop around the
garden."
Marilla was out in the orchard picking a panful of summer apples when
she saw Mr. Barry coming over the log bridge and up the slope, with Mrs.
Barry beside him and a whole procession of little girls trailing after
him. In his arms he carried Anne, whose head lay limply against his
shoulder.
At that moment Marilla had a revelation. In the sudden stab of fear
that pierced her very heart she realized what Anne had come to mean to
her. She would have admitted that she liked Anne-nay, that she was very
fond of Anne. But now she knew as she hurried wildly down the slope that
Anne was dearer to her than anything else on earth.
"Mr. Barry, what has happened to her?" she gasped, more white and
shaken than the self-contained, sensible Marilla had been for many years.
Anne herself answered, lifting her head.
"Don't be very frightened, Marilla. I was walking the ridgepole and I
fell off. I expect I have sprained my ankle. But, Marilla, I might have
broken my neck. Let us look on the bright side of things."
"I might have known you'd go and do something of the sort when I let
you go to that party," said Marilla, sharp and shrewish in her very
relief. "Bring her in here, Mr. Barry, and lay her on the sofa. Mercy me,
the child has gone and fainted!"
It was quite true. Overcome by the pain of her injury, Anne had one
more of her wishes granted to her. She had fainted dead away.
Matthew, hastily summoned from the harvest field, was straightway
dispatched for the doctor, who in due time came, to discover that the
injury was more serious than they had supposed. Anne's ankle was broken.
That night, when Marilla went up to the east gable, where a
white-faced girl was lying, a plaintive voice greeted her from the bed.
"Aren't you very sorry for me, Marilla?"
"It was your own fault," said Marilla, twitching down the blind and
lighting a lamp.
"And that is just why you should be sorry for me," said Anne,
"because the thought that it is all my own fault is what makes it so hard.
If I could blame it on anybody I would feel so much better. But what would
you have done, Marilla, if you had been dared to walk a ridgepole?"
"I'd have stayed on good firm ground and let them dare away. Such
absurdity!" said Marilla.
Anne sighed.
"But you have such strength of mind, Marilla. I haven't. I just felt
that I couldn't bear Josie Pye's scorn. She would have crowed over me all
my life. And I think I have been punished so much that you needn't be very
cross with me, Marilla. It's not a bit nice to faint, after all. And the
doctor hurt me dreadfully when he was setting my ankle. I won't be able to
go around for six or seven weeks and I'll miss the new lady teacher. She
won't be new any more by the time I'm able to go to school. And
Gileverybody will get ahead of me in class. Oh, I am an afflicted mortal.
But I'll try to bear it all bravely if only you won't be cross with me,
Marilla."
"There, there, I'm not cross," said Marilla. "You're an unlucky
child, there's no doubt about that; but as you say, you'll have the
suffering of it. Here now, try and eat some supper."
"Isn't it fortunate I've got such an imagination?" said Anne. "It
will help me through splendidly, I expect. What do people who haven't any
imagination do when they break their bones, do you suppose, Marilla?"
Anne had good reason to bless her imagination many a time and oft
during the tedious seven weeks that followed. But she was not solely
dependent on it. She had many visitors and not a day passed without one or
more of the schoolgirls dropping in to bring her flowers and books and
tell her all the happenings in the juvenile world of Avonlea.
"Everybody has been so good and kind, Marilla," sighed Anne happily,
on the day when she could first limp across the floor. "It isn't very
pleasant to be laid up; but there is a bright side to it, Marilla. You
find out how many friends you have. Why, even Superintendent Bell came to
see me, and he's really a very fine man. Not a kindred spirit, of course;
but still I like him and I'm awfully sorry I ever criticized his prayers.
I believe now he really does mean them, only he has got into the habit of
saying them as if he didn't. He could get over that if he'd take a little
trouble. I gave him a good broad hint. I told him how hard I tried to make
my own little private prayers interesting. He told me all about the time
he broke his ankle when he was a boy. It does seem so strange to think of
Superintendent Bell ever being a boy. Even my imagination has its limits,
for I can't imagine THAT. When I try to imagine him as a boy I see him
with gray whiskers and spectacles, just as he looks in Sunday school, only
small. Now, it's so easy to imagine Mrs. Allan as a little girl. Mrs.
Allan has been to see me fourteen times. Isn't that something to be proud
of, Marilla? When a minister's wife has so many claims on her time! She is
such a cheerful person to have visit you, too. She never tells you it's
your own fault and she hopes you'll be a better girl on account of it.
Mrs. Lynde always told me that when she came to see me; and she said it in
a kind of way that made me feel she might hope I'd be a better girl but
didn't really believe I would. Even Josie Pye came to see me. I received
her as politely as I could, because I think she was sorry she dared me to
walk a ridgepole. If I had been killed she would had to carry a dark
burden of remorse all her life. Diana has been a faithful friend. She's
been over every day to cheer my lonely pillow. But oh, I shall be so glad
when I can go to school for I've heard such exciting things about the new
teacher. The girls all think she is perfectly sweet. Diana says she has
the loveliest fair curly hair and such fascinating eyes. She dresses
beautifully, and her sleeve puffs are bigger than anybody else's in
Avonlea. Every other Friday afternoon she has recitations and everybody
has to say a piece or take part in a dialogue. Oh, it's just glorious to
think of it. Josie Pye says she hates it but that is just because Josie
has so little imagination. Diana and Ruby Gillis and Jane Andrews are
preparing a dialogue, called `A Morning Visit,' for next Friday. And the
Friday afternoons they don't have recitations Miss Stacy takes them all to
the woods for a `field' day and they study ferns and flowers and birds.
And they have physical culture exercises every morning and evening. Mrs.
Lynde says she never heard of such goings on and it all comes of having a
lady teacher. But I think it must be splendid and I believe I shall find
that Miss Stacy is a kindred spirit."
"There's one thing plain to be seen, Anne," said Marilla, "and that
is that your fall off the Barry roof hasn't injured your tongue at all."

24. Miss Stacy and Her Pupils Get Up a Concert

It was October again when Anne was ready to go back to school-a
glorious October, all red and gold, with mellow mornings when the valleys
were filled with delicate mists as if the spirit of autumn had poured them
in for the sun to drain-amethyst, pearl, silver, rose, and smoke-blue. The
dews were so heavy that the fields glistened like cloth of silver and
there were such heaps of rustling leaves in the hollows of many-stemmed
woods to run crisply through. The Birch Path was a canopy of yellow and
the ferns were sear and brown all along it. There was a tang in the very
air that inspired the hearts of small maidens tripping, unlike snails,
swiftly and willingly to school; and it was jolly to be back again at the
little brown desk beside Diana, with Ruby Gillis nodding across the aisle
and Carrie Sloane sending up notes and Julia Bell passing a "chew" of gum
down from the back seat. Anne drew a long breath of happiness as she
sharpened her pencil and arranged her picture cards in her desk. Life was
certainly very interesting.
In the new teacher she found another true and helpful friend. Miss
Stacy was a bright, sympathetic young woman with the happy gift of winning
and holding the affections of her pupils and bringing out the best that
was in them mentally and morally. Anne expanded like a flower under this
wholesome influence and carried home to the admiring Matthew and the
critical Marilla glowing accounts of schoolwork and aims.
"I love Miss Stacy with my whole heart, Marilla. She is so ladylike
and she has such a sweet voice. When she pronounces my name I feel
INSTINCTIVELY that she's spelling it with an E. We had recitations this
afternoon. I just wish you could have been there to hear me recite `Mary,
Queen of Scots.' I just put my whole soul into it. Ruby Gillis told me
coming home that the way I said the line, `Now for my father's arm,' she
said, `my woman's heart farewell,' just made her blood run cold."
"Well now, you might recite it for me some of these days, out in the
barn," suggested Matthew.
"Of course I will," said Anne meditatively, "but I won't be able to
do it so well, I know. It won't be so exciting as it is when you have a
whole schoolful before you hanging breathlessly on your words. I know I
won't be able to make your blood run cold."
"Mrs. Lynde says it made HER blood run cold to see the boys climbing
to the very tops of those big trees on Bell's hill after crows' nests last
Friday," said Marilla. "I wonder at Miss Stacy for encouraging it."
"But we wanted a crow's nest for nature study," explained Anne. "That
was on our field afternoon. Field afternoons are splendid, Marilla. And
Miss Stacy explains everything so beautifully. We have to write
compositions on our field afternoons and I write the best ones."
"It's very vain of you to say so then. You'd better let your teacher
say it."
"But she DID say it, Marilla. And indeed I'm not vain about it. How
can I be, when I'm such a dunce at geometry? Although I'm really beginning
to see through it a little, too. Miss Stacy makes it so clear. Still, I'll
never be good at it and I assure you it is a humbling reflection. But I
love writing compositions. Mostly Miss Stacy lets us choose our own
subjects; but next week we are to write a composition on some remarkable
person. It's hard to choose among so many remarkable people who have
lived. Mustn't it be splendid to be remarkable and have compositions
written about you after you're dead? Oh, I would dearly love to be
remarkable. I think when I grow up I'll be a trained nurse and go with the
Red Crosses to the field of battle as a messenger of mercy. That is, if I
don't go out as a foreign missionary. That would be very romantic, but one
would have to be very good to be a missionary, and that would be a
stumbling block. We have physical culture exercises every day, too. They
make you graceful and promote digestion."
"Promote fiddlesticks!" said Marilla, who honestly thought it was all
nonsense.
But all the field afternoons and recitation Fridays and physical
culture contortions paled before a project which Miss Stacy brought
forward in November. This was that the scholars of Avonlea school should
get up a concert and hold it in the hall on Christmas Night, for the
laudable purpose of helping to pay for a schoolhouse flag. The pupils one
and all taking graciously to this plan, the preparations for a program
were begun at once. And of all the excited performers-elect none was so
excited as Anne Shirley, who threw herself into the undertaking heart and
soul, hampered as she was by Marilla's disapproval. Marilla thought it all
rank foolishness.
"It's just filling your heads up with nonsense and taking time that
ought to be put on your lessons," she grumbled. "I don't approve of
children's getting up concerts and racing about to practices. It makes
them vain and forward and fond of gadding."
"But think of the worthy object," pleaded Anne. "A flag will
cultivate a spirit of patriotism, Marilla."
"Fudge! There's precious little patriotism in the thoughts of any of
you. All you want is a good time."
"Well, when you can combine patriotism and fun, isn't it all right?
Of course it's real nice to be getting up a concert. We're going to have
six choruses and Diana is to sing a solo. I'm in two dialogues-`The
Society for the Suppression of Gossip' and `The Fairy Queen.' The boys are
going to have a dialogue too. And I'm to have two recitations, Marilla. I
just tremble when I think of it, but it's a nice thrilly kind of tremble.
And we're to have a tableau at the last-`Faith, Hope and Charity.' Diana
and Ruby and I are to be in it, all draped in white with flowing hair. I'm
to be Hope, with my hands clasped-so-and my eyes uplifted. I'm going to
practice my recitations in the garret. Don't be alarmed if you hear me
groaning. I have to groan heartrendingly in one of them, and it's really
hard to get up a good artistic groan, Marilla. Josie Pye is sulky because
she didn't get the part she wanted in the dialogue. She wanted to be the
fairy queen. That would have been ridiculous, for who ever heard of a
fairy queen as fat as Josie? Fairy queens must be slender. Jane Andrews is
to be the queen and I am to be one of her maids of honor. Josie says she
thinks a red-haired fairy is just as ridiculous as a fat one, but I do not
let myself mind what Josie says. I'm to have a wreath of white roses on my
hair and Ruby Gillis is going to lend me her slippers because I haven't
any of my own. It's necessary for fairies to have slippers, you know. You
couldn't imagine a fairy wearing boots, could you? Especially with copper
toes? We are going to decorate the hall with creeping spruce and fir
mottoes with pink tissue-paper roses in them. And we are all to march in
two by two after the audience is seated, while Emma White plays a march on
the organ. Oh, Marilla, I know you are not so enthusiastic about it as I
am, but don't you hope your little Anne will distinguish herself?"
"All I hope is that you'll behave yourself. I'll be heartily glad
when all this fuss is over and you'll be able to settle down. You are
simply good for nothing just now with your head stuffed full of dialogues
and groans and tableaus. As for your tongue, it's a marvel it's not clean
worn out."
Anne sighed and betook herself to the back yard, over which a young
new moon was shining through the leafless poplar boughs from an
apple-green western sky, and where Matthew was splitting wood. Anne
perched herself on a block and talked the concert over with him, sure of
an appreciative and sympathetic listener in this instance at least.
"Well now, I reckon it's going to be a pretty good concert. And I
expect you'll do your part fine," he said, smiling down into her eager,
vivacious little face. Anne smiled back at him. Those two were the best of
friends and Matthew thanked his stars many a time and oft that he had
nothing to do with bringing her up. That was Marilla's exclusive duty; if
it had been his he would have been worried over frequent conflicts between
inclination and said duty. As it was, he was free to, "spoil
Anne"-Marilla's phrasing-as much as he liked. But it was not such a bad
arrangement after all; a little "appreciation" sometimes does quite as
much good as all the conscientious "bringing up" in the world.

25. Matthew Insists on Puffed Sleeves

Matthew was having a bad ten minutes of it. He had come into the
kitchen, in the twilight of a cold, gray December evening, and had sat
down in the woodbox corner to take off his heavy boots, unconscious of the
fact that Anne and a bevy of her schoolmates were having a practice of
"The Fairy Queen" in the sitting room. Presently they came trooping
through the hall and out into the kitchen, laughing and chattering gaily.
They did not see Matthew, who shrank bashfully back into the shadows
beyond the woodbox with a boot in one hand and a bootjack in the other,
and he watched them shyly for the aforesaid ten minutes as they put on
caps and jackets and talked about the dialogue and the concert. Anne stood
among them, bright eyed and animated as they; but Matthew suddenly became
conscious that there was something about her different from her mates. And
what worried Matthew was that the difference impressed him as being
something that should not exist. Anne had a brighter face, and bigger,
starrier eyes, and more delicate features than the other; even shy,
unobservant Matthew had learned to take note of these things; but the
difference that disturbed him did not consist in any of these respects.
Then in what did it consist?
Matthew was haunted by this question long after the girls had gone,
arm in arm, down the long, hard-frozen lane and Anne had betaken herself
to her books. He could not refer it to Marilla, who, he felt, would be
quite sure to sniff scornfully and remark that the only difference she saw
between Anne and the other girls was that they sometimes kept their
tongues quiet while Anne never did. This, Matthew felt, would be no great
help.
He had recourse to his pipe that evening to help him study it out,
much to Marilla's disgust. After two hours of smoking and hard reflection
Matthew arrived at a solution of his problem. Anne was not dressed like
the other girls!
The more Matthew thought about the matter the more he was convinced
that Anne never had been dressed like the other girls-never since she had
come to Green Gables. Marilla kept her clothed in plain, dark dresses, all
made after the same unvarying pattern. If Matthew knew there was such a
thing as fashion in dress it was as much as he did; but he was quite sure
that Anne's sleeves did not look at all like the sleeves the other girls
wore. He recalled the cluster of little girls he had seen around her that
evening-all gay in waists of red and blue and pink and white-and he
wondered why Marilla always kept her so plainly and soberly gowned.
Of course, it must be all right. Marilla knew best and Marilla was
bringing her up. Probably some wise, inscrutable motive was to be served
thereby. But surely it would do no harm to let the child have one pretty
dress-something like Diana Barry always wore. Matthew decided that he
would give her one; that surely could not be objected to as an unwarranted
putting in of his oar. Christmas was only a fortnight off. A nice new
dress would be the very thing for a present. Matthew, with a sigh of
satisfaction, put away his pipe and went to bed, while Marilla opened all
the doors and aired the house.
The very next evening Matthew betook himself to Carmody to buy the
dress, determined to get the worst over and have done with it. It would
be, he felt assured, no trifling ordeal. There were some things Matthew
could buy and prove himself no mean bargainer; but he knew he would be at
the mercy of shopkeepers when it came to buying a girl's dress.
After much cogitation Matthew resolved to go to Samuel Lawson's store
instead of William Blair's. To be sure, the Cuthberts always had gone to
William Blair's; it was almost as much a matter of conscience with them as
to attend the Presbyterian church and vote Conservative. But William
Blair's two daughters frequently waited on customers there and Matthew
held them in absolute dread. He could contrive to deal with them when he
knew exactly what he wanted and could point it out; but in such a matter
as this, requiring explanation and consultation, Matthew felt that he must
be sure of a man behind the counter. So he would go to Lawson's, where
Samuel or his son would wait on him.
Alas! Matthew did not know that Samuel, in the recent expansion of
his business, had set up a lady clerk also; she was a niece of his wife's
and a very dashing young person indeed, with a huge, drooping pompadour,
big, rolling brown eyes, and a most extensive and bewildering smile. She
was dressed with exceeding smartness and wore several bangle bracelets
that glittered and rattled and tinkled with every movement of her hands.
Matthew was covered with confusion at finding her there at all; and those
bangles completely wrecked his wits at one fell swoop.
"What can I do for you this evening, Mr. Cuthbert?" Miss Lucilla
Harris inquired, briskly and ingratiatingly, tapping the counter with both
hands.
"Have you any-any-any-well now, say any garden rakes?" stammered
Matthew.
Miss Harris looked somewhat surprised, as well she might, to hear a
man inquiring for garden rakes in the middle of December.
"I believe we have one or two left over," she said, "but they're
upstairs in the lumber room. I'll go and see.". During her absence Matthew
collected his scattered senses for another effort.
When Miss Harris returned with the rake and cheerfully inquired:
"Anything else tonight, Mr. Cuthbert?" Matthew took his courage in both
hands and replied: "Well now, since you suggest it, I might as
well-take-that is-look at-buy some-some hayseed."
Miss Harris had heard Matthew Cuthbert called odd. She now concluded
that he was entirely crazy.
"We only keep hayseed in the spring," she explained loftily. "We've
none on hand just now."
"Oh, certainly-certainly-just as you say," stammered unhappy Matthew,
seizing the rake and making for the door. At the threshold he recollected
that he had not paid for it and he turned miserably back. While Miss
Harris was counting out his change he rallied his powers for a final
desperate attempt.
"Well now-if it isn't too much trouble-I might as well-that is-I'd
like to look at-at-some sugar."
"White or brown?" queried Miss Harris patiently.
"Oh-well now-brown," said Matthew feebly.
"There's a barrel of it over there," said Miss Harris, shaking her
bangles at it. "It's the only kind we have."
"I'll-I'll take twenty pounds of it," said Matthew, with beads of
perspiration standing on his forehead.
Matthew had driven halfway home before he was his own man again. It
had been a gruesome experience, but it served him right, he thought, for
committing the heresy of going to a strange store. When he reached home he
hid the rake in the tool house, but the sugar he carried in to Marilla.
"Brown sugar!" exclaimed Marilla. "Whatever possessed you to get so
much? You know I never use it except for the hired man's porridge or black
fruit cake. Jerry's gone and I've made my cake long ago. It's not good
sugar, either-it's coarse and dark-William Blair doesn't usually keep
sugar like that."
"I-I thought it might come in handy sometime," said Matthew, making
good his escape.
When Matthew came to think the matter over he decided that a woman
was required to cope with the situation. Marilla was out of the question.
Matthew felt sure she would throw cold water on his project at once.
Remained only Mrs. Lynde; for of no other woman in Avonlea would Matthew
have dared to ask advice. To Mrs. Lynde he went accordingly, and that good
lady promptly took the matter out of the harassed man's hands.
"Pick out a dress for you to give Anne? To be sure I will. I'm going
to Carmody tomorrow and I'll attend to it. Have you something particular
in mind? No? Well, I'll just go by my own judgment then. I believe a nice
rich brown would just suit Anne, and William Blair has some new gloria in
that's real pretty. Perhaps you'd like me to make it up for her, too,
seeing that if Marilla was to make it Anne would probably get wind of it
before the time and spoil the surprise? Well, I'll do it. No, it isn't a
mite of trouble. I like sewing. I'll make it to fit my niece, Jenny
Gillis, for she and Anne are as like as two peas as far as figure goes."
"Well now, I'm much obliged," said Matthew, "and-and-I dunno-but I'd
like-I think they make the sleeves different nowadays to what they used to
be. If it wouldn't be asking too much I-I'd like them made in the new way."
"Puffs? Of course. You needn't worry a speck more about it, Matthew.
I'll make it up in the very latest fashion," said Mrs. Lynde. To herself
she added when Matthew had gone:
"It'll be a real satisfaction to see that poor child wearing
something decent for once. The way Marilla dresses her is positively
ridiculous, that's what, and I've ached to tell her so plainly a dozen
times. I've held my tongue though, for I can see Marilla doesn't want
advice and she thinks she knows more about bringing children up than I do
for all she's an old maid. But that's always the way. Folks that has
brought up children know that there's no hard and fast method in the world
that'll suit every child. But them as never have think it's all as plain
and easy as Rule of Three-just set your three terms down so fashion, and
the sum'll work out correct. But flesh and blood don't come under the head
of arithmetic and that's where Marilla Cuthbert makes her mistake. I
suppose she's trying to cultivate a spirit of humility in Anne by dressing
her as she does; but it's more likely to cultivate envy and discontent.
I'm sure the child must feel the difference between her clothes and the
other girls'. But to think of Matthew taking notice of it! That man is
waking up after being asleep for over sixty years."
Marilla knew all the following fortnight that Matthew had something
on his mind, but what it was she could not guess, until Christmas Eve,
when Mrs. Lynde brought up the new dress. Marilla behaved pretty well on
the whole, although it is very likely she distrusted Mrs. Lynde's
diplomatic explanation that she had made the dress because Matthew was
afraid Anne would find out about it too soon if Marilla made it.
"So this is what Matthew has been looking so mysterious over and
grinning about to himself for two weeks, is it?" she said a little stiffly
but tolerantly. "I knew he was up to some foolishness. Well, I must say I
don't think Anne needed any more dresses. I made her three good, warm,
serviceable ones this fall, and anything more is sheer extravagance.
There's enough material in those sleeves alone to make a waist, I declare
there is. You'll just pamper Anne's vanity, Matthew, and she's as vain as
a peaco*ck now. Well, I hope she'll be satisfied at last, for I know she's
been hankering after those silly sleeves ever since they came in, although
she never said a word after the first. The puffs have been getting bigger
and more ridiculous right along; they're as big as balloons now. Next year
anybody who wears them will have to go through a door sideways."
Christmas morning broke on a beautiful white world. It had been a
very mild December and people had looked forward to a green Christmas; but
just enough snow fell softly in the night to transfigure Avonlea. Anne
peeped out from her frosted gable window with delighted eyes. The firs in
the Haunted Wood were all feathery and wonderful; the birches and wild
cherry trees were outlined in pearl; the plowed fields were stretches of
snowy dimples; and there was a crisp tang in the air that was glorious.
Anne ran downstairs singing until her voice reechoed through Green Gables.
"Merry Christmas, Marilla! Merry Christmas, Matthew! Isn't it a
lovely Christmas? I'm so glad it's white. Any other kind of Christmas
doesn't seem real, does it? I don't like green Christmases. They're not
greenthey're just nasty faded browns and grays. What makes people call
them green? Why-why-Matthew, is that for me? Oh, Matthew!"
Matthew had sheepishly unfolded the dress from its paper swathings
and held it out with a deprecatory glance at Marilla, who feigned to be
contemptuously filling the teapot, but nevertheless watched the scene out
of the corner of her eye with a rather interested air.
Anne took the dress and looked at it in reverent silence. Oh, how
pretty it was-a lovely soft brown gloria with all the gloss of silk; a
skirt with dainty frills and shirrings; a waist elaborately pintucked in
the most fashionable way, with a little ruffle of filmy lace at the neck.
But the sleeves-they were the crowning glory! Long elbow cuffs, and above
them two beautiful puffs divided by rows of shirring and bows of
brown-silk ribbon.
"That's a Christmas present for you, Anne," said Matthew shyly.
"Why-why-Anne, don't you like it? Well now-well now."
For Anne's eyes had suddenly filled with tears.
"Like it! Oh, Matthew!" Anne laid the dress over a chair and clasped
her hands. "Matthew, it's perfectly exquisite. Oh, I can never thank you
enough. Look at those sleeves! Oh, it seems to me this must be a happy
dream."
"Well, well, let us have breakfast," interrupted Marilla. "I must
say, Anne, I don't think you needed the dress; but since Matthew has got
it for you, see that you take good care of it. There's a hair ribbon Mrs.
Lynde left for you. It's brown, to match the dress. Come now, sit in."
"I don't see how I'm going to eat breakfast," said Anne rapturously.
"Breakfast seems so commonplace at such an exciting moment. I'd rather
feast my eyes on that dress. I'm so glad that puffed sleeves are still
fashionable. It did seem to me that I'd never get over it if they went out
before I had a dress with them. I'd never have felt quite satisfied, you
see. It was lovely of Mrs. Lynde to give me the ribbon too. I feel that I
ought to be a very good girl indeed. It's at times like this I'm sorry I'm
not a model little girl; and I always resolve that I will be in future.
But somehow it's hard to carry out your resolutions when irresistible
temptations come. Still, I really will make an extra effort after this."
When the commonplace breakfast was over Diana appeared, crossing the
white log bridge in the hollow, a gay little figure in her crimson ulster.
Anne flew down the slope to meet her.
"Merry Christmas, Diana! And oh, it's a wonderful Christmas. I've
something splendid to show you. Matthew has given me the loveliest dress,
with such sleeves. I couldn't even imagine any nicer."
"I've got something more for you," said Diana breathlessly. "Here-
this box. Aunt Josephine sent us out a big box with ever so many things in
it-and this is for you. I'd have brought it over last night, but it didn't
come until after dark, and I never feel very comfortable coming through
the Haunted. Wood in the dark now."
Anne opened the box and peeped in. First a card with "For the
Anne-girl and Merry Christmas," written on it; and then, a pair of the
daintiest little kid slippers, with beaded toes and satin bows and
glistening buckles.
"Oh," said Anne, "Diana, this is too much. I must be dreaming."
"I call it providential," said Diana. "You won't have to borrow
Ruby's slippers now, and that's a blessing, for they're two sizes too big
for you, and it would be awful to hear a fairy shuffling. Josie Pye would
be delighted. Mind you, Rob Wright went home with Gertie Pye from the
practice night before last. Did you ever hear anything equal to that?"
All the Avonlea scholars were in a fever of excitement that day, for
the hall had to be decorated and a last grand rehearsal held.
The concert came off in the evening and was a pronounced success. The
little hall was crowded; all the performers did excellently well, but Anne
was the bright particular star of the occasion, as even envy, in the shape
of Josie Pye, dared not deny.
"Oh, hasn't it been a brilliant evening?" sighed Anne, when it was
all over and she and Diana were walking home together under a dark, starry
sky.
"Everything went off very well," said Diana practically. "I guess we
must have made as much as ten dollars. Mind you, Mr. Allan is going to
send an account of it to the Charlottetown papers."
"Oh, Diana, will we really see our names in print? It makes me thrill
to think of it. Your solo was perfectly elegant, Diana. I felt prouder
than you did when it was encored. I just said to myself, `It is my dear
bosom friend who is so honored.'"
"Well, your recitations just brought down the house, Anne. That sad
one was simply splendid."
"Oh, I was so nervous, Diana. When Mr. Allan called out my name I
really cannot tell how I ever got up on that platform. I felt as if a
million eyes were looking at me and through me, and for one dreadful
moment I was sure I couldn't begin at all. Then I thought of my lovely
puffed sleeves and took courage. I knew that I must live up to those
sleeves, Diana. So I started in, and my voice seemed to be coming from
ever so far away. I just felt like a parrot. It's providential that I
practiced those recitations so often up in the garret, or I'd never have
been able to get through. Did I groan all right?"
"Yes, indeed, you groaned lovely," assured Diana.
"I saw old Mrs. Sloane wiping away tears when I sat down. It was
splendid to think I had touched somebody's heart. It's so romantic to take
part in a concert, isn't it? Oh, it's been a very memorable occasion
indeed."
"Wasn't the boys' dialogue fine?" said Diana. "Gilbert Blythe was
just splendid. Anne, I do think it's awful mean the way you treat Gil.
Wait till I tell you. When you ran off the platform after the fairy
dialogue one of your roses fell out of your hair. I saw Gil pick it up and
put it in his breast pocket. There now. You're so romantic that I'm sure
you ought to be pleased at that."
"It's nothing to me what that person does," said Anne loftily. "I
simply never waste a thought on him, Diana."
That night Marilla and Matthew, who had been out to a concert for the
first time in twenty years, sat for a while by the kitchen fire after Anne
had gone to bed.
"Well now, I guess our Anne did as well as any of them," said Matthew
proudly.
"Yes, she did," admitted Marilla. "She's a bright child, Matthew. And
she looked real nice too. I've been kind of opposed to this concert
scheme, but I suppose there's no real harm in it after all. Anyhow, I was
proud of Anne tonight, although I'm not going to tell her so."
"Well now, I was proud of her and I did tell her so 'fore she went
upstairs," said Matthew. "We must see what we can do for her some of these
days, Marilla. I guess she'll need something more than Avonlea school by
and by."
"There's time enough to think of that," said Marilla. "She's only
thirteen in March. Though tonight it struck me she was growing quite a big
girl. Mrs. Lynde made that dress a mite too long, and it makes Anne look
so tall. She's quick to learn and I guess the best thing we can do for her
will be to send her to Queen's after a spell. But nothing need be said
about that for a year or two yet."
"Well now, it'll do no harm to be thinking it over off and on," said
Matthew. "Things like that are all the better for lots of thinking over."

26. The Story Club Is Formed

Junior Avonlea found it hard to settle down to humdrum existence
again. To Anne in particular things seemed fearfully flat, stale, and
unprofitable after the goblet of excitement she had been sipping for
weeks. Could she go back to the former quiet pleasures of those faraway
days before the concert? At first, as she told Diana, she did not really
think she could.
"I'm positively certain, Diana, that life can never be quite the same
again as it was in those olden days," she said mournfully, as if referring
to a period of at least fifty years back. "Perhaps after a while I'll get
used to it, but I'm afraid concerts spoil people for everyday life. I
suppose that is why Marilla disapproves of them. Marilla is such a
sensible woman. It must be a great deal better to be sensible; but still,
I don't believe I'd really want to be a sensible person, because they are
so unromantic. Mrs. Lynde says there is no danger of my ever being one,
but you can never tell. I feel just now that I may grow up to be sensible
yet. But perhaps that is only because I'm tired. I simply couldn't sleep
last night for ever so long. I just lay awake and imagined the concert
over and over again. That's one splendid thing about such affairs-it's so
lovely to look back to them."
Eventually, however, Avonlea school slipped back into its old groove
and took up its old interests. To be sure, the concert left traces. Ruby
Gillis and Emma White, who had quarreled over a point of precedence in
their platform seats, no longer sat at the same desk, and a promising
friendship of three years was broken up. Josie Pye and Julia Bell did not
"speak" for three months, because Josie Pye had told Bessie Wright that
Julia Bell's bow when she got up to recite made her think of a chicken
jerking its head, and Bessie.told Julia. None of the Sloanes would have
any dealings with the Bells, because the Bells had declared that the
Sloanes had too much to do in the program, and the Sloanes had retorted
that the Bells were not capable of doing the little they had to do
properly. Finally, Charlie Sloane fought Moody Spurgeon MacPherson,
because Moody Spurgeon had said that Anne Shirley put on airs about her
recitations, and Moody Spurgeon was "licked"; consequently Moody
Spurgeon's sister, Ella May, would not "speak" to Anne Shirley all the
rest of the winter. With the exception of these trifling frictions, work
in Miss Stacy's little kingdom went on with regularity and smoothness.
The winter weeks slipped by. It was an unusually mild winter, with so
little snow that Anne and Diana could go to school nearly every day by way
of the Birch Path. On Anne's birthday they were tripping lightly down it,
keeping eyes and ears alert amid all their chatter, for Miss Stacy had
told them that they must soon write a composition on "A Winter's Walk in
the Woods," and it behooved them to be observant.
"Just think, Diana, I'm thirteen years old today," remarked Anne in
an awed voice. "I can scarcely realize that I'm in my teens. When I woke
this morning it seemed to me that everything must be different. You've
been thirteen for a month, so I suppose it doesn't seem such a novelty to
you as it does to me. It makes life seem so much more interesting. In two
more years I'll be really grown up. It's a great comfort to think that
I'll be able to use big words then without being laughed at."
"Ruby Gillis says she means to have a beau as soon as she's fifteen,"
said Diana.
"Ruby Gillis thinks of nothing but beaus," said Anne disdainfully.
"She's actually delighted when anyone writes her name up in a take-notice
for all she pretends to be so mad. But I'm afraid that is an uncharitable
speech. Mrs. Allan says we should never make uncharitable speeches; but
they do slip out so often before you think, don't they? I simply can't
talk about Josie Pye without making an uncharitable speech, so I never
mention her at all. You may have noticed that. I'm trying to be as much
like Mrs. Allan as I possibly can, for I think she's perfect. Mr. Allan
thinks so too. Mrs. Lynde says he just worships the ground she treads on
and she doesn't really think it right for a minister to set his affections
so much on a mortal being. But then, Diana, even ministers are human and
have their besetting sins just like everybody else. I had such an
interesting talk with Mrs. Allan about besetting sins last Sunday
afternoon. There are just a few things it's proper to talk about on
Sundays and that is one of them. My besetting sin is imagining too much
and forgetting my duties. I'm striving very hard to overcome it and now
that I'm really thirteen perhaps I'll get on better."
"In four more years we'll be able to put our hair up," said Diana.
"Alice Bell is only sixteen and she is wearing hers up, but I think that's
ridiculous. I shall wait until I'm seventeen."
"If I had Alice Bell's crooked nose," said Anne decidedly, "I
wouldn't-but there! I won't say what I was going to because it was
extremely uncharitable. Besides, I was comparing it with my own nose and
that's vanity. I'm afraid I think too much about my nose ever since I
heard that compliment about it long ago. It really is a great comfort to
me. Oh, Diana, look, there's a rabbit. That's something to remember for
our woods composition. I really think the woods are just as lovely in
winter as in summer. They're so white and still, as if they were asleep
and dreaming pretty dreams."
"I won't mind writing that composition when its time comes," sighed
Diana. "I can manage to write about the woods, but the one we're to hand
in Monday is terrible. The idea of Miss Stacy telling us to write a story
out of our own heads!"
"Why. it's as easy as wink," said Anne.
"It's easy for you because you have an imagination," retorted Diana,
"but what would you do if you had been born without one? I suppose you
have your composition all done?"
Anne nodded, trying hard not to look virtuously complacent and
failing miserably.
"I wrote it last Monday evening. It's called `The Jealous Rival; or
In Death Not Divided.' I read it to Marilla and she said it was stuff and
nonsense. Then I read it to Matthew and he said it was fine. That is the
kind of critic I like. It's a sad, sweet story. I just cried like a child
while I was writing it. It's about two beautiful maidens called Cordelia
Montmorency and Geraldine Seymour who lived in the same village and were
devotedly attached to each other. Cordelia was a regal brunette with a
coronet of midnight hair and duskly flashing eyes. Geraldine was a queenly
blonde with hair like spun gold and velvety purple eyes."
"I never saw anybody with purple eyes," said Diana dubiously.
"Neither did I. I just imagined them. I wanted something out of the
common. Geraldine had an alabaster brow too. I've found out what an
alabaster brow is. That is one of the advantages of being thirteen. You
know so much more than you did when you were only twelve."
"Well, what became of Cordelia and Geraldine?" asked Diana, who was
beginning to feel rather interested in their fate.
"They grew in beauty side by side until they were sixteen. Then
Bertram DeVere came to their native village and fell in love with the fair
Geraldine. He saved her life when her horse ran away with her in a
carriage, and she fainted in his arms and he carried her home three miles;
because, you understand, the carriage was all smashed up. I found it
rather hard to imagine the proposal because I had no experience to go by.
I asked Ruby Gillis if she knew anything about how men proposed because I
thought she'd likely be an authority on the subject, having so many
sisters married. Ruby told me she was hid in the hall pantry when Malcolm
Andres proposed to her sister Susan. She said Malcolm told Susan that his
dad had given him the farm in his own name and then said, `What do you
say, darling pet, if we get hitched this fall?' And Susan said, `Yes-no-I
don't know-let me see'-and there they were, engaged as quick as that. But
I didn't think that sort of a proposal was a very romantic one, so in the
end I had to imagine it out as well as I could. I made it very flowery and
poetical and Bertram went on his knees, although Ruby Gillis says it isn't
done nowadays. Geraldine accepted him in a speech a page long. I can tell
you I took a lot of trouble with that speech. I rewrote it five times and
I look upon it as my masterpiece. Bertram gave her a diamond ring and a
ruby necklace and told her they would go to Europe for a wedding tour, for
he was immensely wealthy. But then, alas, shadows began to darken over
their path. Cordelia was secretly in love with Bertram herself and when
Geraldine told her about the engagement she was simply furious, especially
when she saw the necklace and the diamond ring. All her affection for
Geraldine turned to bitter hate and she vowed that she should never marry
Bertram. But she pretended to be Geraldine's friend the same as ever. One
evening they were standing on the bridge over a rushing turbulent stream
and Cordelia, thinking they were alone, pushed Geraldine over the brink
with a wild, mocking, `Ha, ha, ha.' But Bertram saw it all and he at once
plunged into the current, exclaiming, `I will save thee, my peerless
Geraldine.' But alas, he had forgotten he couldn't swim, and they were
both drowned, clasped in each other's arms. Their bodies were washed
ashore soon afterwards. They were buried in the one grave and their
funeral was most imposing, Diana. It's so much more romantic to end a
story up with a funeral than a wedding. As for Cordelia, she went insane
with remorse and was shut up in a lunatic asylum. I thought that was a
poetical retribution for her crime."
"How perfectly lovely!" sighed Diana, who belonged to Matthew's
school of critics. "I don't see how you can make up such thrilling things
out of your own head, Anne. I wish my imagination was as good as yours."
"It would be if you'd only cultivate it," said Anne cheeringly. "I've
just thought of a plan, Diana. Let you and me have a story club all our
own and write stories for practice. I'll help you along until you can do
them by yourself. You ought to cultivate your imagination, you know. Miss
Stacy says so. Only we must take the right way. I told her about the
Haunted Wood, but she said we went the wrong way about it in that."
This was how the story club came into existence. It was limited to
Diana and Anne at first, but soon it was extended to include Jane Andrews
and Ruby Gillis and one or two others who felt that their imaginations
needed cultivating. No boys were allowed in it-although Ruby Gillis opined
that their admission would make it more exciting-and each member had to
produce one story a week.
"It's extremely interesting," Anne told Marilla. "Each girl has to
read her story out loud and then we talk it over. We are going to keep
them all sacredly and have them to read to our descendants. We each write
under a nom-de-plume. Mine is Rosamond Montmorency. All the girls do
pretty well. Ruby Gillis is rather sentimental. She puts too much
lovemaking into her stories and you know too much is worse than too
little. Jane never puts any because she says it makes her feel so silly
when she had to read it out loud. Jane's stories are extremely sensible.
Then Diana puts too many murders into hers. She says most of the time she
doesn't know what to do with the people so she kills them off to get rid
of them. I mostly always have to tell them what to write about, but that
isn't hard for I've millions of ideas."
"I think this story-writing business is the foolishest yet," scoffed
Marilla. "You'll get a pack of nonsense into your heads and waste time
that should be put on your lessons. Reading stories is bad enough but
writing them is worse."
"But we're so careful to put a moral into them all, Marilla,"
explained Anne. "I insist upon that. All the good people are rewarded and
all the bad ones are suitably punished. I'm sure that must have a
wholesome effect. The moral is the great thing. Mr. Allan says so. I read
one of my stories to him and Mrs. Allan and they both agreed that the
moral was excellent. Only they laughed in the wrong places. I like it
better when people cry. Jane and Ruby almost always cry when I come to the
pathetic parts. Diana wrote her Aunt Josephine about our club and her Aunt
Josephine wrote back that we were to send her some of our stories. So we
copied out four of our very best and sent them. Miss Josephine Barry wrote
back that she had never read anything so amusing in her life. That kind of
puzzled us because the stories were all very pathetic and almost everybody
died. But I'm glad Miss Barry liked them. It shows our club is doing some
good in the world. Mrs. Allan says that ought to be our object in
everything. I do really try to make it my object but I forget so often
when I'm having fun. I hope I shall be a little like Mrs. Allan when I
grow up. Do you think there is any prospect of it, Marilla?"
"I shouldn't say there was a great deal" was Marilla's encouraging
answer. "I'm sure Mrs. Allan was never such a silly, forgetful little girl
as you are."
"No; but she wasn't always so good as she is now either," said Anne
seriously. "She told me so herself-that is, she said she was a dreadful
mischief when she was a girl and was always getting into scrapes. I felt
so encouraged when I heard that. Is it very wicked of me, Marilla, to feel
encouraged when I hear that other people have been bad and mischievous?
Mrs. Lynde says it is. Mrs. Lynde says she always feels shocked when she
hears of anyone ever having been naughty, no matter how small they were.
Mrs. Lynde says she once heard a minister confess that when he was a boy
he stole a strawberry tart out of his aunt's pantry and she never had any
respect for that minister again. Now, I wouldn't have felt that way. I'd
have thought that it was real noble of him to confess it, and I'd have
thought what an encouraging thing it would be for small boys nowadays who
do naughty things and are sorry for them to know that perhaps they may
grow up to be ministers in spite of it. That's how I'd feel, Marilla."
"The way I feel at present, Anne," said Marilla, "is that it's high
time you had those dishes washed. You've taken half an hour longer than
you should with all your chattering. Learn to work first and talk
afterwards."

27. Vanity and Vexation of Spirit

Marilla, walking home one late April evening from an Aid meeting,
realized that the winter was over and gone with the thrill of delight that
spring never fails to bring to the oldest and saddest as well as to the
youngest and merriest. Marilla was not given to subjective analysis of her
thoughts and feelings. She probably imagined that she was thinking about
the Aids and their missionary box and the new carpet for the vestry room,
but under these reflections was a harmonious consciousness of red fields
smoking into pale-purply mists in the declining sun, of long,
sharp-pointed fir shadows falling over the meadow beyond the brook, of
still, crimson-budded maples around a mirrorlike wood pool, of a wakening
in the world and a stir of hidden pulses under the gray sod. The spring
was abroad in the land and Marilla's sober, middle-aged step was lighter
and swifter because of its deep, primal gladness.
Her eyes dwelt affectionately on Green Gables, peering through its
network of trees and reflecting the sunlight back from its windows in
several little coruscations of glory. Marilla, as she picked her steps
along the damp lane, thought that it was really a satisfaction to know
that she was going home to a briskly snapping wood fire and a table nicely
spread for tea, instead of to the cold comfort of old Aid meeting evenings
before Anne had come to Green Gables.
Consequently, when Marilla entered her kitchen and found the fire
black out, with no sign of Anne anywhere, she felt justly disappointed and
irritated. She had told Anne to be sure and have tea ready at five
o'clock, but now she must hurry to take off her second-best dress and
prepare the meal herself against Matthew's return from plowing.
"I'll settle Miss Anne when she comes home," said Marilla grimly, as
she shaved up kindlings with a carving knife and with more vim than was
strictly necessary. Matthew had come in and was waiting patiently for his
tea in his corner. "She's gadding off somewhere with Diana, writing
stories or practicing dialogues or some such tomfoolery, and never
thinking once about the time or her duties. She's just got to be pulled up
short and sudden on this sort of thing. I don't care if Mrs. Allan does
say she's the brightest and sweetest child she ever knew. She may be
bright and sweet enough, but her head is full of nonsense and there's
never any knowing what shape it'll break out in next. Just as soon as she
grows out of one freak she takes up with another. But there! Here I am
saying the very thing I was so riled with Rachel Lynde for saying at the
Aid today. I was real glad when Mrs. Allan spoke up for Anne, for if she
hadn't I know I'd have said something too sharp to Rachel before
everybody. Anne's got plenty of faults, goodness knows, and far be it from
me to deny it. But I'm bringing her up and not Rachel Lynde, who'd pick
faults in the Angel Gabriel himself if he lived in Avonlea. Just the same,
Anne has no business to leave the house like this when I told her she was
to stay home this afternoon and look after things. I must say, with all
her faults, I never found her disobedient or untrustworthy before and I'm
real sorry to find her so now."
"Well now, I dunno," said Matthew, who, being patient and wise and,
above all, hungry, had deemed it best to let Marilla talk her wrath out
unhindered, having learned by experience that she got through with
whatever work was on hand much quicker if not delayed by untimely
argument. "Perhaps you're judging her too hasty, Marilla. Don't call her
untrustworthy until you're sure she has disobeyed you. Mebbe it can all be
explained-Anne's a great hand at explaining."
"She's not here when I told her to stay," retorted Marilla. "I reckon
she'll find it hard to explain that to my satisfaction. Of course I knew
you'd take her part, Matthew. But I'm bringing her up, not you."
It was dark when supper was ready, and still no sign of Anne, coming
hurriedly over the log bridge or up Lover's Lane, breathless and repentant
with a sense of neglected duties. Marilla washed and put away the dishes
grimly. Then, wanting a candle to light her way down the cellar, she went
up to the east gable for the one that generally stood on Anne's table.
Lighting it, she turned around to see Anne herself lying on the bed, face
downward among the pillows.
"Mercy on us," said astonished Marilla, "have you been asleep, Anne?"
"No," was the muffled reply.
"Are you sick then?" demanded Marilla anxiously, going over to the
bed.
Anne cowered deeper into her pillows as if desirous of hiding herself
forever from mortal eyes.
"No. But please, Marilla, go away and don't look at me. I'm in the
depths of despair and I don't care who gets head in class or writes the
best composition or sings in the Sundayschool choir any more. Little
things like that are of no importance now because I don't suppose I'll
ever be able to go anywhere again. My career is closed. Please, Marilla,
go away and don't look at me."
"Did anyone ever hear the like?" the mystified Marilla wanted to
know. "Anne Shirley, whatever is the matter with you? What have you done?
Get right up this minute and tell me. This minute, I say. There now, what
is it?"
Anne had slid to the floor in despairing obedience.
"Look at my hair, Marilla," she whispered.
Accordingly, Marilla lifted her candle and looked scrutinizingly at
Anne's hair, flowing in heavy masses down her back. It certainly had a
very strange appearance.
"Anne Shirley, what have you done to your hair? Why, it's GREEN!"
Green it might be called, if it were any earthly color-a queer, dull,
bronzy green, with streaks here and there of the original red to heighten
the ghastly effect. Never in all her life had Marilla seen anything so
grotesque as Anne's hair at that moment.
"Yes, it's green," moaned Anne. "I thought nothing could be as bad as
red hair. But now I know it's ten times worse to have green hair. Oh,
Marilla, you little know how utterly wretched I am."
"I little know how you got into this fix, but I mean to find out,"
said Marilla. "Come right down to the kitchen-it's too cold up here-and
tell me just what you've done. I've been expecting something queer for
some time. You haven't got into any scrape for over two months, and I was
sure another one was due. Now, then, what did you do to your hair?"
"I dyed it."
"Dyed it! Dyed your hair! Anne Shirley, didn't you know it was a
wicked thing to do?"
"Yes, I knew it was a little wicked," admitted Anne. "But I thought
it was worth while to be a little wicked to get rid of red hair. I counted
the cost, Marilla. Besides, I meant to be extra good in other ways to make
up for it."
"Well," said Marilla sarcastically, "if I'd decided it was worth
while to dye my hair I'd have dyed it a decent color at least. I wouldn't
have dyed it green."
"But I didn't mean to dye it green, Marilla," protested Anne
dejectedly. "If I was wicked I meant to be wicked to some purpose. He said
it would turn my hair a beautiful raven black-he positively assured me
that it would. How could I doubt his word, Marilla? I know what it feels
like to have your word doubted. And Mrs. Allan says we should never
suspect anyone of not telling us the truth unless we have proof that
they're not. I have proof now-green hair is proof enough for anybody. But
I hadn't then and I believed every word he said IMPLICITLY."
"Who said? Who are you talking about?"
"The peddler that was here this afternoon. I bought the dye from him."
"Anne Shirley, how often have I told you never to let one of those
Italians in the house! I don't believe in encouraging them to come around
at all."
"Oh, I didn't let him in the house. I remembered what you told me,
and I went out, carefully shut the door, and looked at his things on the
step. Besides, he wasn't an Italian-he was a German Jew. He had a big box
full of very interesting things and he told me he was working hard to make
enough money to bring his wife and children out from Germany. He spoke so
feelingly about them that it touched my heart. I wanted to buy something
from him to help him in such a worthy object. Then all at once I saw the
bottle of hair dye. The peddler said it was warranted to dye any hair a
beautiful raven black and wouldn't wash off. In a trice I saw myself with
beautiful raven-black hair and the temptation was irresistible. But the
price of the bottle was seventy-five cents and I had only fifty cents left
out of my chicken money. I think the peddler had a very kind heart, for he
said that, seeing it was me, he'd sell it for fifty cents and that was
just giving it away. So I bought it, and as soon as he had gone I came up
here and applied it with an old hairbrush as the directions said. I used
up the whole bottle, and oh, Marilla, when I saw the dreadful color it
turned my hair I repented of being wicked, I can tell you. And I've been
repenting ever since."
"Well, I hope you'll repent to good purpose," said Marilla severely,
"and that you've got your eyes opened to where your vanity has led you,
Anne. Goodness knows what's to be done. I suppose the first thing is to
give your hair a good washing and see if that will do any good."
Accordingly, Anne washed her hair, scrubbing it vigorously with soap
and water, but for all the difference it made she might as well have been
scouring its original red. The peddler had certainly spoken the truth when
he declared that the dye wouldn't wash off, however his veracity might be
impeached in other respects.
"Oh, Marilla, what shall I do?" questioned Anne in tears. "I can
never live this down. People have pretty well forgotten my other
mistakes-the liniment cake and setting Diana drunk and flying into a
temper with Mrs. Lynde. But they'll never forget this. They will think I
am not respectable. Oh, Marilla, `what a tangled web we weave when first
we practice to deceive.' That is poetry, but it is true. And oh, how Josie
Pye will laugh! Marilla, I CANNOT face Josie Pye. I am the unhappiest girl
in Prince Edward Island."
Anne's unhappiness continued for a week. During that time she went
nowhere and shampooed her hair every day. Diana alone of outsiders knew
the fatal secret, but she promised solemnly never to tell, and it may be
stated here and now that she kept her word. At the end of the week Marilla
said decidedly:
"It's no use, Anne. That is fast dye if ever there was any. Your hair
must be cut off; there is no other way. You can't go out with it looking
like that."
Anne's lips quivered, but she realized the bitter truth of Marilla's
remarks. With a dismal sigh she went for the scissors.
"Please cut it off at once, Marilla, and have it over. Oh, I feel
that my heart is broken. This is such an unromantic affliction. The girls
in books lose their hair in fevers or sell it to get money for some good
deed, and I'm sure I wouldn't mind losing my hair in some such fashion
half so much. But there is nothing comforting in having your hair cut off
because you've dyed it a dreadful color, is there? I'm going to weep all
the time you're cutting it off, if it won't interfere. It seems such a
tragic thing."
Anne wept then, but later on, when she went upstairs and looked in
the glass, she was calm with despair. Marilla had done her work thoroughly
and it had been necessary to shingle the hair as closely as possible. The
result was not becoming, to state the case as mildly as may be. Anne
promptly turned her glass to the wall.
"I'll never, never look at myself again until my hair grows," she
exclaimed passionately.
Then she suddenly righted the glass.
"Yes, I will, too. I'd do penance for being wicked that way. I'll
look at myself every time I come to my room and see how ugly I am. And I
won't try to imagine it away, either. I never thought I was vain about my
hair, of all things, but now I know I was, in spite of its being red,
because it was so long and thick and curly. I expect something will happen
to my nose next."
Anne's clipped head made a sensation in school on the following
Monday, but to her relief nobody guessed the real reason for it, not even
Josie Pye, who, however, did not fail to inform Anne that she looked like
a perfect scarecrow.
"I didn't say anything when Josie said that to me," Anne confided
that evening to Marilla, who was lying on the sofa after one of her
headaches, "because I thought it was part of my punishment and I ought to
bear it patiently. It's hard to be told you look like a scarecrow and I
wanted to say something back. But I didn't. I just swept her one scornful
look and then I forgave her. It makes you feel very virtuous when you
forgive people, doesn't it? I mean to devote all my energies to being good
after this and I shall never try to be beautiful again. Of course it's
better to be good. I know it is, but it's sometimes so hard to believe a
thing even when you know it. I do really want to be good, Marilla, like
you and Mrs. Allan and Miss Stacy, and grow up to be a credit to you.
Diana says when my hair begins to grow to tie a black velvet ribbon around
my head with a bow at one side. She says she thinks it will be very
becoming. I will call it a snood-that sounds so romantic. But am I talking
too much, Marilla? Does it hurt your head?"
"My head is better now. It was terrible bad this afternoon, though.
These headaches of mine are getting worse and worse. I'll have to see a
doctor about them. As for your chatter, I don't know that I mind it-I've
got so used to it."
Which was Marilla's way of saying that she liked to hear it.

28. An Unfortunate Lily Maid

OF course you must be Elaine, Anne," said Diana. "I could never have
the courage to float down there."
"Nor I," said Ruby Gillis, with a shiver. "I don't mind floating down
when there's two or three of us in the flat and we can sit up. It's fun
then. But to lie down and pretend I was dead-I just couldn't. I'd die
really of fright."
"Of course it would be romantic," conceded Jane Andrews, "but I know
I couldn't keep still. I'd be popping up every minute or so to see where I
was and if I wasn't drifting too far out. And you know, Anne, that would
spoil the effect."
"But it's so ridiculous to have a redheaded Elaine," mourned Anne.
"I'm not afraid to float down and I'd love to be Elaine. But it's
ridiculous just the same. Ruby ought to be Elaine because she is so fair
and has such lovely long golden hairElaine had `all her bright hair
streaming down,' you know. And Elaine was the lily maid. Now, a red-haired
person cannot be a lily maid."
"Your complexion is just as fair as Ruby's," said Diana earnestly,
"and your hair is ever so much darker than it used to be before you cut
it."
"Oh, do you really think so?" exclaimed Anne, flushing sensitively
with delight. "I've sometimes thought it was myself-but I never dared to
ask anyone for fear she would tell me it wasn't. Do you think it could be
called auburn now, Diana?"
"Yes, and I think it is real pretty," said Diana, looking admiringly
at the short, silky curls that clustered over Anne's head and were held in
place by a very jaunty black velvet ribbon and bow.
They were standing on the bank of the pond, below Orchard Slope,
where a little headland fringed with birches ran out from the bank; at its
tip was a small wooden platform built out into the water for the
convenience of fishermen and duck hunters. Ruby and Jane were spending the
midsummer afternoon with Diana, and Anne had come over to play with them.
Anne and Diana had spent most of their playtime that summer on and
about the pond. Idlewild was a thing of the past, Mr. Bell having
ruthlessly cut down the little circle of trees in his back pasture in the
spring. Anne had sat among the stumps and wept, not without an eye to the
romance of it; but she was speedily consoled, for, after all, as she and
Diana said, big girls of thirteen, going on fourteen, were too old for
such childish amusem*nts as playhouses, and there were more fascinating
sports to be found about the pond. It was splendid to fish for trout over
the bridge and the two girls learned to row themselves about in the little
flat-bottomed dory Mr. Barry kept for duck shooting.
It was Anne's idea that they dramatize Elaine. They had studied
Tennyson's poem in school the preceding winter, the Superintendent of
Education having prescribed it in the English course for the Prince Edward
Island schools. They had analyzed and parsed it and torn it to pieces in
general until it was a wonder there was any meaning at all left in it for
them, but at least the fair lily maid and Lancelot and Guinevere and King
Arthur had become very real people to them, and Anne was devoured by
secret regret that she had not been born in Camelot. Those days, she said,
were so much more romantic than the present.
Anne's plan was hailed with enthusiasm. The girls had discovered that
if the flat were pushed off from the landing place it would drift down
with the current under the bridge and finally strand itself on another
headland lower down which ran out at a curve in the pond. They had often
gone down like this and nothing could be more convenient for playing
Elaine.
"Well, I'll be Elaine," said Anne, yielding reluctantly, for,
although she would have been delighted to play the principal character,
yet her artistic sense demanded fitness for it and this, she felt, her
limitations made impossible. "Ruby, you must be King Arthur and Jane will
be Guinevere and Diana must be Lancelot. But first you must be the
brothers and the father. We can't have the old dumb servitor because there
isn't room for two in the flat when one is lying down. We must pall the
barge all its length in blackest samite. That old black shawl of your
mother's will be just the thing, Diana."
The black shawl having been procured, Anne spread it over the flat
and then lay down on the bottom, with closed eyes and hands folded over
her breast.
"Oh, she does look really dead," whispered Ruby Gillis nervously,
watching the still, white little face under the flickering shadows of the
birches. "It makes me feel frightened, girls. Do you suppose it's really
right to act like this? Mrs. Lynde says that all play-acting is abominably
wicked."
"Ruby, you shouldn't talk about Mrs. Lynde," said Anne severely. "It
spoils the effect because this is hundreds of years before Mrs. Lynde was
born. Jane, you arrange this. It's silly for Elaine to be talking when
she's dead."
Jane rose to the occasion. Cloth of gold for coverlet there was none,
but an old piano scarf of yellow Japanese crepe was an excellent
substitute. A white lily was not obtainable just then, but the effect of a
tall blue iris placed in one of Anne's folded hands was all that could be
desired.
"Now, she's all ready," said Jane. "We must kiss her quiet brows and,
Diana, you say, `Sister, farewell forever,' and Ruby, you say, `Farewell,
sweet sister" both of you as sorrowfully as you possibly can. Anne, for
goodness sake smile a little. You know Elaine `lay as though she smiled.'
That's better. Now push the flat off."
The flat was accordingly pushed off, scraping roughly over an old
embedded stake in the process. Diana and Jane and Ruby only waited long
enough to see it caught in the current and headed for the bridge before
scampering up through the woods, across the road, and down to the lower
headland where, as Lancelot and Guinevere and the King, they were to be in
readiness to receive the lily maid.
For a few minutes Anne, drifting slowly down, enjoyed the romance of
her situation to the full. Then something happened not at all romantic.
The flat began to leak. In a very few moments it was necessary for Elaine
to scramble to her feet, pick up her cloth of gold coverlet and pall of
blackest samite and gaze blankly at a big crack in the bottom of her barge
through which the water was literally pouring. That sharp stake at the
landing had torn off the strip of batting nailed on the flat. Anne did not
know this, but it did not take her long to realize that she was in a
dangerous plight. At this rate the flat would fill and sink long before it
could drift to the lower headland. Where were the oars? Left behind at the
landing!
Anne gave one gasping little scream which nobody ever heard; she was
white to the lips, but she did not lose her self-possession. There was one
chance-just one.
"I was horribly frightened," she told Mrs. Allan the next day, "and
it seemed like years while the flat was drifting down to the bridge and
the water rising in it every moment. I prayed, Mrs. Allan, most earnestly,
but I didn't shut my eyes to pray, for I knew the only way God could save
me was to let the flat float close enough to one of the bridge piles for
me to climb up on it. You know the piles are just old tree trunks and
there are lots of knots and old branch stubs on them. It was proper to
pray, but I had to do my part by watching out and right well I knew it. I
just said, `Dear God, please take the flat close to a pile and I'll do the
rest,' over and over again. Under such circ*mstances you don't think much
about making a flowery prayer. But mine was answered, for the flat bumped
right into a pile for a minute and I flung the scarf and the shawl over my
shoulder and scrambled up on a big providential stub. And there I was,
Mrs. Allan, clinging to that slippery old pile with no way of getting up
or down. It was a very unromantic position, but I didn't think about that
at the time. You don't think much about romance when you have just escaped
from a watery grave. I said a grateful prayer at once and then I gave all
my attention to holding on tight, for I knew I should probably have to
depend on human aid to get back to dry land."
The flat drifted under the bridge and then promptly sank in
midstream. Ruby, Jane, and Diana, already awaiting it on the lower
headland, saw it disappear before their very eyes and had not a doubt but
that Anne had gone down with it. For a moment they stood still, white as
sheets, frozen with horror at the tragedy; then, shrieking at the tops of
their voices, they started on a frantic run up through the woods, never
pausing as they crossed the main road to glance the way of the bridge.
Anne, clinging desperately to her precarious foothold, saw their flying
forms and heard their shrieks. Help would soon come, but meanwhile her
position was a very uncomfortable one.
The minutes passed by, each seeming an hour to the unfortunate lily
maid. Why didn't somebody come? Where had the girls gone? Suppose they had
fainted, one and all! Suppose nobody ever came! Suppose she grew so tired
and cramped that she could hold on no longer! Anne looked at the wicked
green depths below her, wavering with long, oily shadows, and shivered.
Her imagination began to suggest all manner of gruesome possibilities to
her.
Then, just as she thought she really could not endure the ache in her
arms and wrists another moment, Gilbert Blythe came rowing under the
bridge in Harmon Andrews's dory!
Gilbert glanced up and, much to his amazement, beheld a little white
scornful face looking down upon him with big, frightened but also scornful
gray eyes.
"Anne Shirley! How on earth did you get there?" he exclaimed.
Without waiting for an answer he pulled close to the pile and
extended his hand. There was no help for it; Anne, clinging to Gilbert
Blythe's hand, scrambled down into the dory, where she sat, drabbled and
furious, in the stern with her arms full of dripping shawl and wet crepe.
It was certainly extremely difficult to be dignified under the
circ*mstances!
"What has happened, Anne?" asked Gilbert, taking up his oars.
"We were playing Elaine" explained Anne frigidly, without even
looking at her rescuer, "and I had to drift down to Camelot in the barge-I
mean the flat. The flat began to leak and I climbed out on the pile. The
girls went for help. Will you be kind enough to row me to the landing?"
Gilbert obligingly rowed to the landing and Anne, disdaining
assistance, sprang nimbly on shore.
"I'm very much obliged to you," she said haughtily as she turned
away. But Gilbert had also sprung from the boat and now laid a detaining
hand on her arm.
"Anne," he said hurriedly, "look here. Can't we be good friends? I'm
awfully sorry I made fun of your hair that time. I didn't mean to vex you
and I only meant it for a joke. Besides, it's so long ago. I think your
hair is awfully pretty now-honest I do. Let's be friends."
For a moment Anne hesitated. She had an odd, newly awakened
consciousness under all her outraged dignity that the half-shy, half-eager
expression in Gilbert's hazel eyes was something that was very good to
see. Her heart gave a quick, queer little beat. But the bitterness of her
old grievance promptly stiffened up her wavering determination. That scene
of two years before flashed back into her recollection as vividly as if it
had taken place yesterday. Gilbert had called her, `carrots', and had
brought about her disgrace before the whole school. Her resentment, which
to other and older people might be as laughable as its cause, was in no
whit allayed and softened by time seemingly. She hated Gilbert Blythe! She
would never forgive him!
"No," she said coldly, "I shall never be friends with you, Gilbert
Blythe; and I don't want to be!"
"All right!" Gilbert sprang into his skiff with an angry color in his
cheeks. "I'll never ask you to be friends again, Anne Shirley. And I don't
care either!"
He pulled away with swift defiant strokes, and Anne went up the
steep, ferny little path under the maples. She held her head very high,
but she was conscious of an odd feeling of regret. She almost wished she
had answered Gilbert differently. Of course, he had insulted her terribly,
but still-! Altogether, Anne rather thought it would be a relief to sit
down and have a good cry. She was really quite unstrung, for the reaction
from her fright and cramped clinging was making itself felt.
Halfway up the path she met Jane and Diana rushing back to the pond
in a state narrowly removed from positive frenzy. They had found nobody at
Orchard Slope, both Mr. and Mrs. Barry being away. Here Ruby Gillis had
succumbed to hysterics, and was left to recover from them as best she
might, while Jane and Diana flew through the Haunted Wood and across the
brook to Green Gables. There they had found nobody either, for Marilla had
gone to Carmody and Matthew was making hay in the back field.
"Oh, Anne," gasped Diana, fairly falling on the former's neck and
weeping with relief and delight, "oh, Anne-we thought-you were-drowned-and
we felt like murderers-because we had made-you be-Elaine. And Ruby is in
hysterics-oh, Anne, how did you escape?"
"I climbed up on one of the piles," explained Anne wearily, "and
Gilbert Blythe came along in Mr. Andrews's dory and brought me to land."
"Oh, Anne, how splendid of him! Why, it's so romantic!" said Jane,
finding breath enough for utterance at last. "Of course you'll speak to
him after this."
"Of course I won't," flashed Anne, with a momentary return of her old
spirit. "And I don't want ever to hear the word `romantic' again, Jane
Andrews. I'm awfully sorry you were so frightened, girls. It is all my
fault. I feel sure I was born under an unlucky star. Everything I do gets
me or my dearest friends into a scrape. We've gone and lost your father's
flat, Diana, and I have a presentiment that we'll not be allowed to row on
the pond any more."
Anne's presentiment proved more trustworthy than presentiments are
apt to do. Great was the consternation in the Barry and Cuthbert
households when the events of the afternoon became known.
"Will you ever have any sense, Anne?" groaned Marilla.
"Oh, yes, I think I will, Marilla," returned Anne optimistically. A
good cry, indulged in the grateful solitude of the east gable, had soothed
her nerves and restored her to her wonted cheerfulness. "I think my
prospects of becoming sensible are brighter now than ever"
"I don't see how," said Marilla.
"Well," explained Anne, "I've learned a new and valuable lesson
today. Ever since I came to Green Gables I've been making mistakes, and
each mistake has helped to cure me of some great shortcoming. The affair
of the amethyst brooch cured me of meddling with things that didn't belong
to me. The Haunted Wood mistake cured me of letting my imagination run
away with me. The liniment cake mistake cured me of carelessness in
cooking. Dyeing my hair cured me of vanity. I never think about my hair
and nose now-at least, very seldom. And today's mistake is going to cure
me of being too romantic. I have come to the conclusion that it is no use
trying to be romantic in Avonlea. It was probably easy enough in towered
Camelot hundreds of years ago, but romance is not appreciated now. I feel
quite sure that you will soon see a great improvement in me in this
respect, Marilla."
"I'm sure I hope so," said Marilla skeptically.
But Matthew, who had been sitting mutely in his corner, laid a hand
on Anne's shoulder when Marilla had gone out.
"Don't give up all your romance, Anne," he whispered shyly, "a little
of it is a good thing-not too much, of course-but keep a little of it,
Anne, keep a little of it."

29. An Epoch in Anne's Life

Anne was bringing the cows home from the back pasture by way of
Lover's Lane. It was a September evening and all the gaps and clearings in
the woods were brimmed up with ruby sunset light. Here and there the lane
was splashed with it, but for the most part it was already quite shadowy
beneath the maples, and the spaces under the firs were filled with a clear
violet dusk like airy wine. The winds were out in their tops, and there is
no sweeter music on earth than that which the wind makes in the fir trees
at evening.
The cows swung placidly down the lane, and Anne followed them
dreamily, repeating aloud the battle canto from Marmion-which had also
been part of their English course the preceding winter and which Miss
Stacy had made them learn off by heart-and exulting in its rushing lines
and the clash of spears in its imagery. When she came to the lines

The stubborn spearsmen still made good
Their dark impenetrable wood,

she stopped in ecstasy to shut her eyes that she might the better
fancy herself one of that heroic ring. When she opened them again it was
to behold Diana coming through the gate that led into the Barry field and
looking so important that Anne instantly divined there was news to be
told. But betray too eager curiosity she would not.
"Isn't this evening just like a purple dream, Diana? It makes me so
glad to be alive. In the mornings I always think the mornings are best;
but when evening comes I think it's lovelier still."
"It's a very fine evening," said Diana, "but oh, I have such news,
Anne. Guess. You can have three guesses."
"Charlotte Gillis is going to be married in the church after all and
Mrs. Allan wants us to decorate it," cried Anne.
"No. Charlotte's beau won't agree to that, because nobody ever has
been married in the church yet, and he thinks it would seem too much like
a funeral. It's too mean, because it would be such fun. Guess again."
"Jane's mother is going to let her have a birthday party?"
Diana shook her head, her black eyes dancing with merriment.
"I can't think what it can be," said Anne in despair, "unless it's
that Moody Spurgeon MacPherson saw you home from prayer meeting last
night. Did he?"
"I should think not," exclaimed Diana indignantly. "I wouldn't be
likely to boast of it if he did, the horrid creature! I knew you couldn't
guess it. Mother had a letter from Aunt Josephine today, and Aunt
Josephine wants you and me to go to town next Tuesday and stop with her
for the Exhibition. There!"
"Oh, Diana," whispered Anne, finding it necessary to lean up against
a maple tree for support, "do you really mean it? But I'm afraid Marilla
won't let me go. She will say that she can't encourage gadding about. That
was what she said last week when Jane invited me to go with them in their
double-seated buggy to the American concert at the White Sands Hotel. I
wanted to go, but Marilla said I'd be better at home learning my lessons
and so would Jane. I was bitterly disappointed, Diana. I felt so
heartbroken that I wouldn't say my prayers when I went to bed. But I
repented of that and got up in the middle of the night and said them."
"I'll tell you," said Diana, "we'll get Mother to ask Marilla. She'll
be more likely to let you go then; and if she does we'll have the time of
our lives, Anne. I've never been to an Exhibition, and it's so aggravating
to hear the other girls talking about their trips. Jane and Ruby have been
twice, and they're going this year again."
"I'm not going to think about it at all until I know whether I can go
or not," said Anne resolutely. "If I did and then was disappointed, it
would be more than I could bear. But in case I do go I'm very glad my new
coat will be ready by that time. Marilla didn't think I needed a new coat.
She said my old one would do very well for another winter and that I ought
to be satisfied with having a new dress. The dress is very pretty,
Diana-navy blue and made so fashionably. Marilla always makes my dresses
fashionably now, because she says she doesn't intend to have Matthew going
to Mrs. Lynde to make them. I'm so glad. It is ever so much easier to be
good if your clothes are fashionable. At least, it is easier for me. I
suppose it doesn't make such a difference to naturally good people. But
Matthew said I must have a new coat, so Marilla bought a lovely piece of
blue broadcloth, and it's being made by a real dressmaker over at Carmody.
It's to be done Saturday night, and I'm trying not to imagine myself
walking up the church aisle on Sunday in my new suit and cap, because I'm
afraid it isn't right to imagine such things. But it just slips into my
mind in spite of me. My cap is so pretty. Matthew bought it for me the day
we were over at Carmody. It is one of those little blue velvet ones that
are all the rage, with gold cord and tassels. Your new hat is elegant,
Diana, and so becoming. When I saw you come into church last Sunday my
heart swelled with pride to think you were my dearest friend. Do you
suppose it's wrong for us to think so much about our clothes? Marilla says
it is very sinful. But it is such an interesting subject, isn't it?"
Marilla agreed to let Anne go to town, and it was arranged that Mr.
Barry should take the girls in on the following Tuesday. As Charlottetown
was thirty miles away and Mr. Barry wished to go and return the same day,
it was necessary to make a very early start. But Anne counted it all joy,
and was up before sunrise on Tuesday morning. A glance from her window
assured her that the day would be fine, for the eastern sky behind the
firs of the Haunted Wood was all silvery and cloudless. Through the gap in
the trees a light was shining in the western gable of Orchard Slope, a
token that Diana was also up.
Anne was dressed by the time Matthew had the fire on and had the
breakfast ready when Marilla came down, but for her own part was much too
excited to eat. After breakfast the jaunty new cap and jacket were donned,
and Anne hastened over the brook and up through the firs to Orchard Slope.
Mr. Barry and Diana were waiting for her, and they were soon on the road.
It was a long drive, but Anne and Diana enjoyed every minute of it.
It was delightful to rattle along over the moist roads in the early red
sunlight that was creeping across the shorn harvest fields. The air was
fresh and crisp, and little smoke-blue mists curled through the valleys
and floated off from the hills. Sometimes the road went through woods
where maples were beginning to hang out scarlet banners; sometimes it
crossed rivers on bridges that made Anne's flesh cringe with the old,
half-delightful fear; sometimes it wound along a harbor shore and passed
by a little cluster of weather-gray fishing huts; again it mounted to
hills whence a far sweep of curving upland or misty-blue sky could be
seen; but wherever it went there was much of interest to discuss. It was
almost noon when they reached town and found their way to "Beechwood." It
was quite a fine old mansion, set back from the street in a seclusion of
green elms and branching beeches. Miss Barry met them at the door with a
twinkle in her sharp black eyes.
"So you've come to see me at last, you Anne-girl," she said. "Mercy,
child, how you have grown! You're taller than I am, I declare. And you're
ever so much better looking than you used to be, too. But I dare say you
know that without being told."
"Indeed I didn't," said Anne radiantly. "I know I'm not so freckled
as I used to be, so I've much to be thankful for, but I really hadn't
dared to hope there was any other improvement. I'm so glad you think there
is, Miss Barry." Miss Barry's house was furnished with "great
magnificence," as Anne told Marilla afterward. The two little country
girls were rather abashed by the splendor of the parlor where Miss Barry
left them when she went to see about dinner.
"Isn't it just like a palace?" whispered Diana. "I never was in Aunt
Josephine's house before, and I'd no idea it was so grand. I just wish
Julia Bell could see this-she puts on such airs about her mother's parlor."
"Velvet carpet," sighed Anne luxuriously, "and silk curtains! I've
dreamed of such things, Diana. But do you know I don't believe I feel very
comfortable with them after all. There are so many things in this room and
all so splendid that there is no scope for imagination. That is one
consolation when you are poor-there are so many more things you can
imagine about."
Their sojourn in town was something that Anne and Diana dated from
for years. From first to last it was crowded with delights.
On Wednesday Miss Barry took them to the Exhibition grounds and kept
them there all day.
"It was splendid," Anne related to Marilla later on. "I never
imagined anything so interesting. I don't really know which department was
the most interesting. I think I liked the horses and the flowers and the
fancywork best. Josie Pye took first prize for knitted lace. I was real
glad she did. And I was glad that I felt glad, for it shows I'm improving,
don't you think, Marilla, when I can rejoice in Josie's success? Mr.
Harmon Andrews took second prize for Gravenstein apples and Mr. Bell took
first prize for a pig. Diana said she thought it was ridiculous for a
Sunday-school superintendent to take a prize in pigs, but I don't see why.
Do you? She said she would always think of it after this when he was
praying so solemnly. Clara Louise MacPherson took a prize for painting,
and Mrs. Lynde got first prize for homemade butter and cheese. So Avonlea
was pretty well represented, wasn't it? Mrs. Lynde was there that day, and
I never knew how much I really liked her until I saw her familiar face
among all those strangers. There were thousands of people there, Marilla.
It made me feel dreadfully insignificant. And Miss Barry took us up to the
grandstand to see the horse races. Mrs. Lynde wouldn't go; she said horse
racing was an abomination and, she being a church member, thought it her
bounden duty to set a good example by staying away. But there were so many
there I don't believe Mrs. Lynde's absence would ever be noticed. I don't
think, though, that I ought to go very often to horse races, because they
ARE awfully fascinating. Diana got so excited that she offered to bet me
ten cents that the red horse would win. I didn't believe he would, but I
refused to bet, because I wanted to tell Mrs. Allan all about everything,
and I felt sure it wouldn't do to tell her that. It's always wrong to do
anything you can't tell the minister's wife. It's as good as an extra
conscience to have a minister's wife for your friend. And I was very glad
I didn't bet, because the red horse DID win, and I would have lost ten
cents. So you see that virtue was its own reward. We saw a man go up in a
balloon. I'd love to go up in a balloon, Marilla; it would be simply
thrilling; and we saw a man selling fortunes. You paid him ten cents and a
little bird picked out your fortune for you. Miss Barry gave Diana and me
ten cents each to have our fortunes told. Mine was that I would marry a
dark-complected man who was very wealthy, and I would go across water to
live. I looked carefully at all the dark men I saw after that, but I
didn't care much for any of them, and anyhow I suppose it's too early to
be looking out for him yet. Oh, it was a never-to-beforgotten day,
Marilla. I was so tired I couldn't sleep at night. Miss Barry put us in
the spare room, according to promise. It was an elegant room, Marilla, but
somehow sleeping in a spare room isn't what I used to think it was. That's
the worst of growing up, and I'm beginning to realize it. The things you
wanted so much when you were a child don't seem half so wonderful to you
when you get them."
Thursday the girls had a drive in the park, and in the evening Miss
Barry took them to a concert in the Academy of Music, where a noted prima
donna was to sing. To Anne the evening was a glittering vision of delight.
"Oh, Marilla, it was beyond description. I was so excited I couldn't
even talk, so you may know what it was like. I just sat in enraptured
silence. Madame Selitsky was perfectly beautiful, and wore white satin and
diamonds. But when she began to sing I never thought about anything else.
Oh, I can't tell you how I felt. But it seemed to me that it could never
be hard to be good any more. I felt like I do when I look up to the stars.
Tears came into my eyes, but, oh, they were such happy tears. I was so
sorry when it was all over, and I told Miss Barry I didn't see how I was
ever to return to common life again. She said she thought if we went over
to the restaurant across the street and had an ice cream it might help me.
That sounded so prosaic; but to my surprise I found it true. The ice cream
was delicious, Marilla, and it was so lovely and dissipated to be sitting
there eating it at eleven o'clock at night. Diana said she believed she
was born for city life. Miss Barry asked me what my opinion was, but I
said I would have to think it over very seriously before I could tell her
what I really thought. So I thought it over after I went to bed. That is
the to think things out. And I came to the conclusion, Marilla, that I
wasn't born for city life and that I was glad of it. It's nice to be
eating ice cream at brilliant restaurants at eleven o'clock at night once
in a while; but as a regular thing I'd rather be in the east gable at
eleven, sound asleep, but kind of knowing even in my sleep that the stars
were shining outside and that the wind was blowing in the firs across the
brook. I told Miss Barry so at breakfast the next morning and she laughed.
Miss Barry generally laughed at anything I said, even when I said the most
solemn things. I don't think I liked it, Marilla, because I wasn't trying
to be funny. But she is a most hospitable lady and treated us royally."
Friday brought going-home time, and Mr. Barry drove in for the girls.
"Well, I hope you've enjoyed yourselves," said Miss Barry, as she
bade them good-bye.
"Indeed we have," said Diana.
"And you, Anne-girl?"
"I've enjoyed every minute of the time," said Anne, throwing her arms
impulsively about the old woman's neck and kissing her wrinkled cheek.
Diana would never have dared to do such a thing and felt rather aghast at
Anne's freedom. But Miss Barry was pleased, and she stood on her veranda
and watched the buggy out of sight. Then she went back into her big house
with a sigh. It seemed very lonely, lacking those fresh young lives. Miss
Barry was a rather selfish old lady, if the truth must be told, and had
never cared much for anybody but herself. She valued people only as they
were of service to her or amused her. Anne had amused her, and
consequently stood high in the old lady's good graces. But Miss Barry
found herself thinking less about Anne's quaint speeches than of her fresh
enthusiasms, her transparent emotions, her little winning ways, and the
sweetness of her eyes and lips.
"I thought Marilla Cuthbert was an old fool when I heard she'd
adopted a girl out of an orphan asylum," she said to herself, "but I guess
she didn't make much of a mistake after all. If I'd a child like Anne in
the house all the time I'd be a better and happier woman."
Anne and Diana found the drive home as pleasant as the drive
in-pleasanter, indeed, since there was the delightful consciousness of
home waiting at the end of it. It was sunset when they passed through
White Sands and turned into the shore road. Beyond, the Avonlea hills came
out darkly against the saffron sky. Behind them the moon was rising out of
the sea that grew all radiant and transfigured in her light. Every little
cove along the curving road was a marvel of dancing ripples. The waves
broke with a soft swish on the rocks below them, and the tang of the sea
was in the strong, fresh air.
"Oh, but it's good to be alive and to be going home," breathed Anne.
When she crossed the log bridge over the brook the kitchen light of
Green Gables winked her a friendly welcome back, and through the open door
shone the hearth fire, sending out its warm red glow athwart the chilly
autumn night. Anne ran blithely up the hill and into the kitchen, where a
hot supper was waiting on the table.
"So you've got back?" said Marilla, folding up her knitting.
"Yes, and oh, it's so good to be back," said Anne joyously. "I could
kiss everything, even to the clock. Marilla, a broiled chicken! You don't
mean to say you cooked that for me!"
"Yes, I did," said Marilla. "I thought you'd be hungry after such a
drive and need something real appetizing. Hurry and take off your things,
and we'll have supper as soon as Matthew comes in. I'm glad you've got
back, I must say. It's been fearful lonesome here without you, and I never
put in four longer days."
After supper Anne sat before the fire between Matthew and Marilla,
and gave them a full account of her visit.
"I've had a splendid time," she concluded happily, "and I feel that
it marks an epoch in my life. But the best of it all was the coming home."

30. The Queens Class Is Organized

Marilla laid her knitting on her lap and leaned back in her chair.
Her eyes were tired, and she thought vaguely that she must see about
having her glasses changed the next time she went to town, for her eyes
had grown tired very often of late.
It was nearly dark, for the full November twilight had fallen around
Green Gables, and the only light in the kitchen came from the dancing red
flames in the stove.
Anne was curled up Turk-fashion on the hearthrug, gazing into that
joyous glow where the sunshine of a hundred summers was being distilled
from the maple cordwood. She had been reading, but her book had slipped to
the floor, and now she was dreaming, with a smile on her parted lips.
Glittering castles in Spain were shaping themselves out of the mists and
rainbows of her lively fancy; adventures wonderful and enthralling were
happening to her in cloudland-adventures that always turned out
triumphantly and never involved her in scrapes like those of actual life.
Marilla looked at her with a tenderness that would never have been
suffered to reveal itself in any clearer light than that soft mingling of
fireshine and shadow. The lesson of a love that should display itself
easily in spoken word and open look was one Marilla could never learn. But
she had learned to love this slim, gray-eyed girl with an affection all
the deeper and stronger from its very undemonstrativeness. Her love made
her afraid of being unduly indulgent, indeed. She had an uneasy feeling
that it was rather sinful to set one's heart so intensely on any human
creature as she had set hers on Anne, and perhaps she performed a sort of
unconscious penance for this by being stricter and more critical than if
the girl had been less dear to her. Certainly Anne herself had no idea how
Marilla loved her. She sometimes thought wistfully that Marilla was very
hard to please and distinctly lacking in sympathy and understanding. But
she always checked the thought reproachfully, remembering what she owed to
Marilla.
"Anne," said Marilla abruptly, "Miss Stacy was here this afternoon
when you were out with Diana."
Anne came back from her other world with a start and a sigh.
"Was she? Oh, I'm so sorry I wasn't in. Why didn't you call me,
Marilla? Diana and I were only over in the Haunted Wood. It's lovely in
the woods now. All the little wood things-the ferns and the satin leaves
and the crackerberries-have gone to sleep, just as if somebody had tucked
them away until spring under a blanket of leaves. I think it was a little
gray fairy with a rainbow scarf that came tiptoeing along the last
moonlight night and did it. Diana wouldn't say much about that, though.
Diana has never forgotten the scolding her mother gave her about imagining
ghosts into the Haunted Wood. It had a very bad effect on Diana's
imagination. It blighted it. Mrs. Lynde says Myrtle Bell is a blighted
being. I asked Ruby Gillis why Myrtle was blighted, and Ruby said she
guessed it was because her young man had gone back on her. Ruby Gillis
thinks of nothing but young men, and the older she gets the worse she is.
Young men are all very well in their place, but it doesn't do to drag them
into everything, does it? Diana and I are thinking seriously of promising
each other that we will never marry but be nice old maids and live
together forever. Diana hasn't quite made up her mind though, because she
thinks perhaps it would be nobler to marry some wild, dashing, wicked
young man and reform him. Diana and I talk a great deal about serious
subjects now, you know. We feel that we are so much older than we used to
be that it isn't becoming to talk of childish matters. It's such a solemn
thing to be almost fourteen, Marilla. Miss Stacy took all us girls who are
in our teens down to the brook last Wednesday, and talked to us about it.
She said we couldn't be too careful what habits we formed and what ideals
we acquired in our teens, because by the time we were twenty our
characters would be developed and the foundation laid for our whole future
life. And she said if the foundation was shaky we could never build
anything really worth while on it. Diana and I talked the matter over
coming home from school. We felt extremely solemn, Marilla. And we decided
that we would try to be very careful indeed and form respectable habits
and learn all we could and be as sensible as possible, so that by the time
we were twenty our characters would be properly developed. It's perfectly
appalling to think of being twenty, Marilla. It sounds so fearfully old
and grown up. But why was Miss Stacy here this afternoon?"
"That is what I want to tell you, Anne, if you'll ever give me a
chance to get a word in edgewise. She was talking about you."
"About me?" Anne looked rather scared. Then she flushed and
exclaimed:
"Oh, I know what she was saying. I meant to tell you, Marilla,
honestly I did, but I forgot. Miss Stacy caught me reading Ben Hur in
school yesterday afternoon when I should have been studying my Canadian
history. Jane Andrews lent it to me. I was reading it at dinner hour, and
I had just got to the chariot race when school went in. I was simply wild
to know how it turned outalthough I felt sure Ben Hur must win, because it
wouldn't be poetical justice if he didn't-so I spread the history open on
my desk lid and then tucked Ben Hur between the desk and my knee. I just
looked as if I were studying Canadian history, you know, while all the
while I was reveling in Ben Hur. I was so interested in it that I never
noticed Miss Stacy coming down the aisle until all at once I just looked
up and there she was looking down at me, so reproachful-like. I can't tell
you how ashamed I felt, Marilla, especially when I heard Josie Pye
giggling. Miss Stacy took Ben Hur away, but she never said a word then.
She kept me in at recess and talked to me. She said I had done very wrong
in two respects. First, I was wasting the time I ought to have put on my
studies; and secondly, I was deceiving my teacher in trying to make it
appear I was reading a history when it was a storybook instead. I had
never realized until that moment, Marilla, that what I was doing was
deceitful. I was shocked. I cried bitterly, and asked Miss Stacy to
forgive me and I'd never do such a thing again; and I offered to do
penance by never so much as looking at Ben Hur for a whole week, not even
to see how the chariot race turned out. But Miss Stacy said she wouldn't
require that, and she forgave me freely. So I think it wasn't very kind of
her to come up here to you about it after all."
"Miss Stacy never mentioned such a thing to me, Anne, and its only
your guilty conscience that's the matter with you. You have no business to
be taking storybooks to school. You read too many novels anyhow. When I
was a girl I wasn't so much as allowed to look at a novel."
"Oh, how can you call Ben Hur a novel when it's really such a
religious book?" protested Anne. "Of course it's a little too exciting to
be proper reading for Sunday, and I only read it on weekdays. And I never
read ANY book now unless either Miss Stacy or Mrs. Allan thinks it is a
proper book for a girl thirteen and three-quarters to read. Miss Stacy
made me promise that. She found me reading a book one day called, The
Lurid Mystery of the Haunted Hall. It was one Ruby Gillis had lent me,
and, oh, Marilla, it was so fascinating and creepy. It just curdled the
blood in my veins. But Miss Stacy said it was a very silly, unwholesome
book, and she asked me not to read any more of it or any like it. I didn't
mind promising not to read any more like it, but it was AGONIZING to give
back that book without knowing how it turned out. But my love for Miss
Stacy stood the test and I did. It's really wonderful, Marilla, what you
can do when you're truly anxious to please a certain person."
"Well, I guess I'll light the lamp and get to work," said Marilla. "I
see plainly that you don't want to hear what Miss Stacy had to say. You're
more interested in the sound of your own tongue than in anything else."
"Oh, indeed, Marilla, I do want to hear it," cried Anne contritely.
"I won't say another word-not one. I know I talk too much, but I am really
trying to overcome it, and although I say far too much, yet if you only
knew how many things I want to say and don't, you'd give me some credit
for it. Please tell me, Marilla."
"Well, Miss Stacy wants to organize a class among her advanced
students who mean to study for the entrance examination into Queen's. She
intends to give them extra lessons for an hour after school. And she came
to ask Matthew and me if we would like to have you join it. What do you
think about it yourself, Anne? Would you like to go to Queen's and pass
for a teacher?"
"Oh, Marilla!" Anne straightened to her knees and clasped her hands.
"It's been the dream of my life-that is, for the last six months, ever
since Ruby and Jane began to talk of studying for the Entrance. But I
didn't say anything about it, because I supposed it would be perfectly
useless. I'd love to be a teacher. But won't it be dreadfully expensive?
Mr. Andrews says it cost him one hundred and fifty dollars to put Prissy
through, and Prissy wasn't a dunce in geometry."
"I guess you needn't worry about that part of it. When Matthew and I
took you to bring up we resolved we would do the best we could for you and
give you a good education. I believe in a girl being fitted to earn her
own living whether she ever has to or not. You'll always have a home at
Green Gables as long as Matthew and I are here, but nobody knows what is
going to happen in this uncertain world, and it's just as well to be
prepared. So you can join the Queen's class if you like, Anne."
"Oh, Marilla, thank you." Anne flung her arms about Marilla's waist
and looked up earnestly into her face. "I'm extremely grateful to you and
Matthew. And I'll study as hard as I can and do my very best to be a
credit to you. I warn you not to expect much in geometry, but I think I
can hold my own in anything else if I work hard."
"I dare say you'll get along well enough. Miss Stacy says you are
bright and diligent." Not for worlds would Marilla have told Anne just
what Miss Stacy had said about her; that would have been to pamper vanity.
"You needn't rush to any extreme of killing yourself over your books.
There is no hurry. You won't be ready to try the Entrance for a year and a
half yet. But it's well to begin in time and be thoroughly grounded, Miss
Stacy says."
"I shall take more interest than ever in my studies now," said Anne
blissfully, "because I have a purpose in life. Mr. Allan says everybody
should have a purpose in life and pursue it faithfully. Only he says we
must first make sure that it is a worthy purpose. I would call it a worthy
purpose to want to be a teacher like Miss Stacy, wouldn't you, Marilla? I
think it's a very noble profession."
The Queen's class was organized in due time. Gilbert Blythe, Anne
Shirley, Ruby Gillis, Jane Andrews, Josie Pye, Charlie Sloane, and Moody
Spurgeon MacPherson joined it. Diana Barry did not, as her parents did not
intend to send her to Queen's. This seemed nothing short of a calamity to
Anne. Never, since the night on which Minnie May had had the croup, had
she and Diana been separated in anything. On the evening when the Queen's
class first remained in school for the extra lessons and Anne saw Diana go
slowly out with the others, to walk home alone through the Birch Path and
Violet Vale, it was all the former could do to keep her seat and refrain
from rushing impulsively after her chum. A lump came into her throat, and
she hastily retired behind the pages of her uplifted Latin grammar to hide
the tears in her eyes. Not for worlds would Anne have had Gilbert Blythe
or Josie Pye see those tears.
"But, oh, Marilla, I really felt that I had tasted the bitterness of
death, as Mr. Allan said in his sermon last Sunday, when I saw Diana go
out alone," she said mournfully that night. "I thought how splendid it
would have been if Diana had only been going to study for the Entrance,
too. But we can't have things perfect in this imperfect world, as Mrs.
Lynde says. Mrs. Lynde isn't exactly a comforting person sometimes, but
there's no doubt she says a great many very true things. And I think the
Queen's class is going to be extremely interesting. Jane and Ruby are just
going to study to be teachers. That is the height of their ambition. Ruby
says she will only teach for two years after she gets through, and then
she intends to be married. Jane says she will devote her whole life to
teaching, and never, never marry, because you are paid a salary for
teaching, but a husband won't pay you anything, and growls if you ask for
a share in the egg and butter money. I expect Jane speaks from mournful
experience, for Mrs. Lynde says that her father is a perfect old crank,
and meaner than second skimmings. Josie Pye says she is just going to
college for education's sake, because she won't have to earn her own
living; she says of course it is different with orphans who are living on
charity-THEY have to hustle. Moody Spurgeon is going to be a minister.
Mrs. Lynde says he couldn't be anything else with a name like that to live
up to. I hope it isn't wicked of me, Marilla, but really the thought of
Moody Spurgeon being a minister makes me laugh. He's such a funny-looking
boy with that big fat face, and his little blue eyes, and his ears
sticking out like flaps. But perhaps he will be more intellectual looking
when he grows up. Charlie Sloane says he's going to go into politics and
be a member of Parliament, but Mrs. Lynde says he'll never succeed at
that, because the Sloanes are all honest people, and it's only rascals
that get on in politics nowadays."
"What is Gilbert Blythe going to be?" queried Marilla, seeing that
Anne was opening her Caesar.
"I don't happen to know what Gilbert Blythe's ambition in life isif
he has any," said Anne scornfully.
There was open rivalry between Gilbert and Anne now. Previously the
rivalry had been rather onesided, but there was no longer any doubt that
Gilbert was as determined to be first in class as Anne was. He was a
foeman worthy of her steel. The other members of the class tacitly
acknowledged their superiority, and never dreamed of trying to compete
with them.
Since the day by the pond when she had refused to listen to his plea
for forgiveness, Gilbert, save for the aforesaid determined rivalry, had
evinced no recognition whatever of the existence of Anne Shirley. He
talked and jested with the other girls, exchanged books and puzzles with
them, discussed lessons and plans, sometimes walked home with one or the
other of them from prayer meeting or Debating Club. But Anne Shirley he
simply ignored, and Anne found out that it is not pleasant to be ignored.
It was in vain that she told herself with a toss of her head that she did
not care. Deep down in her wayward, feminine little heart she knew that
she did care, and that if she had that chance of the Lake of Shining
Waters again she would answer very differently. All at once, as it seemed,
and to her secret dismay, she found that the old resentment she had
cherished against him was gone-gone just when she most needed its
sustaining power. It was in vain that she recalled every incident and
emotion of that memorable occasion and tried to feel the old satisfying
anger. That day by the pond had witnessed its last spasmodic flicker. Anne
realized that she had forgiven and forgotten without knowing it. But it
was too late.
And at least neither Gilbert nor anybody else, not even Diana, should
ever suspect how sorry she was and how much she wished she hadn't been so
proud and horrid! She determined to "shroud her feelings in deepest
oblivion," and it may be stated here and now that she did it, so
successfully that Gilbert, who possibly was not quite so indifferent as he
seemed, could not console himself with any belief that Anne felt his
retaliatory scorn. The only poor comfort he had was that she snubbed
Charlie Sloane, unmercifully, continually, and undeservedly.
Otherwise the winter passed away in a round of pleasant duties and
studies. For Anne the days slipped by like golden beads on the necklace of
the year. She was happy, eager, interested; there were lessons to be
learned and honor to be won; delightful books to read; new pieces to be
practiced for the Sunday-school choir; pleasant Saturday afternoons at the
manse with Mrs. Allan; and then, almost before Anne realized it, spring
had come again to Green Gables and all the world was abloom once more.
Studies palled just a wee bit then; the Queen's class, left behind in
school while the others scattered to green lanes and leafy wood cuts and
meadow byways, looked wistfully out of the windows and discovered that
Latin verbs and French exercises had somehow lost the tang and zest they
had possessed in the crisp winter months. Even Anne and Gilbert lagged and
grew indifferent. Teacher and taught were alike glad when the term was
ended and the glad vacation days stretched rosily before them.
"But you've done good work this past year," Miss Stacy told them on
the last evening, "and you deserve a good, jolly vacation. Have the best
time you can in the out-of-door world and lay in a good stock of health
and vitality and ambition to carry you through next year. It will be the
tug of war, you know-the last year before the Entrance."
"Are you going to be back next year, Miss Stacy?" asked Josie Pye.
Josie Pye never scrupled to ask questions; in this instance the rest
of the class felt grateful to her; none of them would have dared to ask it
of Miss Stacy, but all wanted to, for there had been alarming rumors
running at large through the school for some time that Miss Stacy was not
coming back the next year-that she had been offered a position in the
grade school of her own home district and meant to accept. The Queen's
class listened in breathless suspense for her answer.
"Yes, I think I will," said Miss Stacy. "I thought of taking another
school, but I have decided to come back to Avonlea. To tell the truth,
I've grown so interested in my pupils here that I found I couldn't leave
them. So I'll stay and see you through."
"Hurrah!" said Moody Spurgeon. Moody Spurgeon had never been so
carried away by his feelings before, and he blushed uncomfortably every
time he thought about it for a week.
"Oh, I'm so glad," said Anne, with shining eyes. "Dear Stacy, it
would be perfectly dreadful if you didn't come I don't believe I could
have the heart to go on with my studies at all if another teacher came
here."
When Anne got home that night she stacked all her textbooks away in
an old trunk in the attic, locked it, and threw the key into the blanket
box.
"I'm not even going to look at a schoolbook in vacation," she told
Marilla. "I've studied as hard all the term as I possibly could and I've
pored over that geometry until I know every proposition in the first book
off by heart, even when the letters ARE changed. I just feel tired of
everything sensible and I'm going to let my imagination run riot for the
summer. Oh, you needn't be alarmed, Marilla. I'll only let it run riot
within reasonable limits. But I want to have a real good jolly time this
summer, for maybe it's the last summer I'll be a little girl. Mrs. Lynde
says that if I keep stretching out next year as I've done this I'll have
to put on longer skirts. She says I'm all running to legs and eyes. And
when I put on longer skirts I shall feel that I have to live up to them
and be very dignified. It won't even do to believe in fairies then, I'm
afraid; so I'm going to believe in them with all my whole heart this
summer. I think we're going to have a very gay vacation. Ruby Gillis is
going to have a birthday party soon and there's the Sunday school picnic.
and the missionary concert next month. And Mrs. Barry says that some
evening he'll take Diana and me over to the White Sands Hotel and have
dinner there. They have dinner there in the evening, you know. Jane
Andrews was over once last summer and she says it was a dazzling sight to
see the electric lights and the flowers and all the lady guests in such
beautiful dresses. Jane says it was her first glimpse into high life and
she'll never forget it to her dying day."
Mrs. Lynde came up the next afternoon to find out why Marilla had not
been at the Aid meeting on Thursday. When Marilla was not at Aid meeting
people knew there was something wrong at Green Gables.
"Matthew had a bad spell with his heart Thursday," Marilla explained,
"and I didn't feel like leaving him. Oh, yes, he's all right again now,
but he takes them spells oftener than he used to and I'm anxious about
him. The doctor says he must be careful to avoid excitement. That's easy
enough, for Matthew doesn't go about looking for excitement by any means
and never did, but he's not to do any very heavy work either and you might
as well tell Matthew not to breathe as not to work. Come and lay off your
things, Rachel. You'll stay to tea?"
"Well, seeing you're so pressing, perhaps I might as well, stay" said
Mrs. Rachel, who had not the slightest intention of doing anything else.
Mrs. Rachel and Marilla sat comfortably in the parlor while Anne got
the tea and made hot biscuits that were light and white enough to defy
even Mrs. Rachel's criticism.
"I must say Anne has turned out a real smart girl," admitted Mrs.
Rachel, as Marilla accompanied her to the end of the lane at sunset. "She
must be a great help to you."
"She is," said Marilla, "and she's real steady and reliable now. I
used to be afraid she'd never get over her featherbrained ways, but she
has and I wouldn't be afraid to trust her in anything now."
"I never would have thought she'd have turned out so well that first
day I was here three years ago," said Mrs. Rachel. "Lawful heart, shall I
ever forget that tantrum of hers! When I went home that night I says to
Thomas, says I, `Mark my words, Thomas, Marilla Cuthbert'll live to rue
the step she's took.' But I was mistaken and I'm real glad of it. I ain't
one of those kind of people, Marilla, as can never be brought to own up
that they've made a mistake. No, that never was my way, thank goodness. I
did make a mistake in judging Anne, but it weren't no wonder, for an
odder, unexpecteder witch of a child there never was in this world, that's
what. There was no ciphering her out by the rules that worked with other
children. It's nothing short of wonderful how she's improved these three
years, but especially in looks. She's a real pretty girl got to be, though
I can't say I'm overly partial to that pale, big-eyed style myself. I like
more snap and color, like Diana Barry has or Ruby Gillis. Ruby Gillis's
looks are real showy. But somehow-I don't know how it is but when Anne and
them are together, though she ain't half as handsome, she makes them look
kind of common and overdonesomething like them white June lilies she calls
narcissus alongside of the big, red peonies, that's what."

31. Where the Brook and River Meet

Anne had her "good" summer and enjoyed it wholeheartedly. She and
Diana fairly lived outdoors, reveling in all the delights that Lover's
Lane and the Dryad's Bubble and Willowmere and Victoria Island afforded.
Marilla offered no objections to Anne's gypsyings. The Spencervale doctor
who had come the night Minnie May had the croup met Anne at the house of a
patient one afternoon early in vacation, looked her over sharply, screwed
up his mouth, shook his head, and sent a message to Marilla Cuthbert by
another person. It was:
"Keep that redheaded girl of yours in the open air all summer and
don't let her read books until she gets more spring into her step."
This message frightened Marilla wholesomely. She read Anne's death
warrant by consumption in it unless it was scrupulously obeyed. As a
result, Anne had the golden summer of her life as far as freedom and
frolic went. She walked, rowed, berried, and dreamed to her heart's
content; and when September came she was bright-eyed and alert, with a
step that would have satisfied the Spencervale doctor and a heart full of
ambition and zest once more.
"I feel just like studying with might and main," she declared as she
brought her books down from the attic. "Oh, you good old friends, I'm glad
to see your honest faces once more-yes, even you, geometry. I've had a
perfectly beautiful summer, Marilla, and now I'm rejoicing as a strong man
to run a race, as Mr. Allan said last Sunday. Doesn't Mr. Allan preach
magnificent sermons? Mrs. Lynde says he is improving every day and the
first thing we know some city church will gobble him up and then we'll be
left and have to turn to and break in another green preacher. But I don't
see the use of meeting trouble halfway, do you, Marilla? I think it would
be better just to enjoy Mr. Allan while we have him. If I were a man I
think I'd be a minister. They can have such an influence for good, if
their theology is sound; and it must be thrilling to preach splendid
sermons and stir your hearers' hearts. Why can't women be ministers,
Marilla? I asked Mrs. Lynde that and she was shocked and said it would be
a scandalous thing. She said there might be female ministers in the States
and she believed there was, but thank goodness we hadn't got to that stage
in Canada yet and she hoped we never would. But I don't see why. I think
women would make splendid ministers. When there is a social to be got up
or a church tea or anything else to raise money the women have to turn to
and do the work. I'm sure Mrs. Lynde can pray every bit as well as
Superintendent Bell and I've no doubt she could preach too with a little
practice."
"Yes, I believe she could," said Marilla dryly. "She does plenty of
unofficial preaching as it is. Nobody has much of a chance to go wrong in
Avonlea with Rachel to oversee them."
"Marilla," said Anne in a burst of confidence, "I want to tell you
something and ask you what you think about it. It has worried me
terribly-on Sunday afternoons, that is, when I think specially about such
matters. I do really want to be good; and when I'm with you or Mrs. Allan
or Miss Stacy I want it more than ever and I want to do just what would
please you and what you would approve of. But mostly when I'm with Mrs.
Lynde I feel desperately wicked and as if I wanted to go and do the very
thing she tells me I oughtn't to do. I feel irresistibly tempted to do it.
Now, what do you think is the reason I feel like that? Do you think it's
because I'm really bad and unregenerate?"
Marilla looked dubious for a moment. Then she laughed.
"If you are I guess I am too, Anne, for Rachel often has that very
effect on me. I sometimes think she'd have more of an influence for good,
as you say yourself, if she didn't keep nagging people to do right. There
should have been a special commandment against nagging. But there, I
shouldn't talk so. Rachel is a good Christian woman and she means well.
There isn't a kinder soul in Avonlea and she never shirks her share of
work."
"I'm very glad you feel the same," said Anne decidedly. "It's so
encouraging. I shan't worry so much over that after this. But I dare say
there'll be other things to worry me. They keep coming up new all the
time-things to perplex you, you know. You settle one question and there's
another right after. There are so many things to be thought over and
decided when you're beginning to grow up. It keeps me busy all the time
thinking them over and deciding what is right. It's a serious thing to
grow up, isn't it, Marilla? But when I have such good friends as you and
Matthew and Mrs. Allan and Miss Stacy I ought to grow up successfully, and
I'm sure it will be my own fault if I don't. I feel it's a great
responsibility because I have only the one chance. If I don't grow up
right I can't go back and begin over again. I've grown two inches this
summer, Marilla. Mr. Gillis measured me at Ruby's party. I'm so glad you
made my new dresses longer. That dark-green one is so pretty and it was
sweet of you to put on the flounce. Of course I know it wasn't really
necessary, but flounces are so stylish this fall and Josie Pye has
flounces on all her dresses. I know I'll be able to study better because
of mine. I shall have such a comfortable feeling deep down in my mind
about that flounce."
"It's worth something to have that," admitted Marilla.
Miss Stacy came back to Avonlea school and found all her pupils eager
for work once more. Especially did the Queen's class gird up their loins
for the fray, for at the end of the coming year, dimly shadowing their
pathway already, loomed up that fateful thing known as "the Entrance," at
the thought of which one and all felt their hearts sink into their very
shoes. Suppose they did not pass! That thought was doomed to haunt Anne
through the waking hours of that winter, Sunday afternoons inclusive, to
the almost entire exclusion of moral and theological problems. When Anne
had bad dreams she found herself staring miserably at pass lists of the
Entrance exams, where Gilbert Blythe's name was blazoned at the top and in
which hers did not appear at all.
But it was a jolly, busy, happy swift-flying winter. Schoolwork was
as interesting, class rivalry as absorbing, as of yore. New worlds of
thought, feeling, and ambition, fresh, fascinating fields of unexplored
knowledge seemed to be opening out before Anne's eager eyes.

"Hills peeped o'er hill and Alps on Alps arose."

Much of all this was due to Miss Stacy's tactful, careful,
broadminded guidance. She led her class to think and explore and discover
for themselves and encouraged straying from the old beaten paths to a
degree that quite shocked Mrs. Lynde and the school trustees, who viewed
all innovations on established methods rather dubiously.
Apart from her studies Anne expanded socially, for Marilla, mindful
of the Spencervale doctor's dictum, no longer vetoed occasional outings.
The Debating Club flourished and gave several concerts; there were one or
two parties almost verging on grown-up affairs; there were sleigh drives
and skating frolics galore.
Betweentimes Anne grew, shooting up so rapidly that Marilla was
astonished one day, when they were standing side by side, to find the girl
was taller than herself.
"Why, Anne, how you've grown!" she said, almost unbelievingly. A sigh
followed on the words. Marilla felt a queer regret over Anne's inches. The
child she had learned to love had vanished somehow and here was this tall,
serious-eyed girl of fifteen, with the thoughtful brows and the proudly
poised little head, in her place. Marilla loved the girl as much as she
had loved the child, but she was conscious of a queer sorrowful sense of
loss. And that night, when Anne had gone to prayer meeting with Diana,
Marilla sat alone in the wintry twilight and indulged in the weakness of a
cry. Matthew, coming in with a lantern, caught her at it and gazed at her
in such consternation that Marilla had to laugh through her tears.
"I was thinking about Anne," she explained. "She's got to be such a
big girl-and she'll probably be away from us next winter. I'll miss her
terrible."
"She'll be able to come home often," comforted Matthew, to whom Anne
was as yet and always would be the little, eager girl he had brought home
from Bright River on that June evening four years before. "The branch
railroad will be built to Carmody by that time."
"It won't be the same thing as having her here all the time," sighed
Marilla gloomily, determined to enjoy her luxury of grief uncomforted.
"But there-men can't understand these things!"
There were other changes in Anne no less real than the physical
change. For one thing, she became much quieter. Perhaps she thought all
the more and dreamed as much as ever, but she certainly talked less.
Marilla noticed and commented on this also.
"You don't chatter half as much as you used to, Anne, nor use half as
many big words. What has come over you?"
Anne colored and laughed a little, as she dropped her book and looked
dreamily out of the window, where big fat red buds were bursting out on
the creeper in response to the lure of the spring sunshine.
"I don't know-I don't want to talk as much," she said, denting her
chin thoughtfully with her forefinger. "It's nicer to think dear, pretty
thoughts and keep them in one's heart, like treasures. I don't like to
have them laughed at or wondered over. And somehow I don't want to use big
words any more. It's almost a pity, isn't it, now that I'm really growing
big enough to say them if I did want to. It's fun to be almost grown up in
some ways, but it's not the kind of fun I expected, Marilla. There's so
much to learn and do and think that there isn't time for big words.
Besides, Miss Stacy says the short ones are much stronger and better. She
makes us write all our essays as simply as possible. It was hard at first.
I was so used to crowding in all the fine big words I could think of-and I
thought of any number of them. But I've got used to it now and I see it's
so much better."
"What has become of your story club? I haven't heard you speak of it
for a long time."
"The story club isn't in existence any longer. We hadn't time for
it-and anyhow I think we had got tired of it. It was silly to be writing
about love and murder and elopements and mysteries. Miss Stacy sometimes
has us write a story for training in composition, but she won't let us
write anything but what might happen in Avonlea in our own lives, and she
criticizes it very sharply and makes us criticize our own too. I never
thought my compositions had so many faults until I began to look for them
myself. I felt so ashamed I wanted to give up altogether, but Miss Stacy
said I could learn to write well if I only trained myself to be my own
severest critic. And so I am trying to."
"You've only two more months before the Entrance," said Marilla. "Do
you think you'll be able to get through?"
Anne shivered.
"I don't know. Sometimes I think I'll be all right-and then I get
horribly afraid. We've studied hard and Miss Stacy has drilled us
thoroughly, but we mayn't get through for all that. We've each got a
stumbling block. Mine is geometry of course, and Jane's is Latin, and Ruby
and Charlie's is algebra, and Josie's is arithmetic. Moody Spurgeon says
he feels it in his bones that he is going to fail in English history. Miss
Stacy is going to give us examinations in June just as hard as we'll have
at the Entrance and mark us just as strictly, so we'll have some idea. I
wish it was all over, Marilla. It haunts me. Sometimes I wake up in the
night and wonder what I'll do if I don't pass."
"Why, go to school next year and try again," said Marilla
unconcernedly.
"Oh, I don't believe I'd have the heart for it. It would be such a
disgrace to fail, especially if Gil-if the others passed. And I get so
nervous in an examination that I'm likely to make a mess of it. I wish I
had nerves like Jane Andrews. Nothing rattles her."
Anne sighed and, dragging her eyes from the witcheries of the spring
world, the beckoning day of breeze and blue, and the green things
upspringing in the garden, buried herself resolutely in her book. There
would be other springs, but if she did not succeed in passing the
Entrance, Anne felt convinced that she would never recover sufficiently to
enjoy them.

32. The Pass List Is Out

With the end of June came the close of the term and the close of Miss
Stacy's rule in Avonlea school. Anne and Diana walked home that evening
feeling very sober indeed. Red eyes and damp handkerchiefs bore convincing
testimony to the fact that Miss Stacy's farewell words must have been
quite as touching as Mr. Phillips's had been under similar circ*mstances
three years before. Diana looked back at the schoolhouse from the foot of
the spruce hill and sighed deeply.
"It does seem as if it was the end of everything, doesn't it?" she
said dismally.
"You oughtn't to feel half as badly as I do," said Anne, hunting
vainly for a dry spot on her handkerchief. "You'll be back again next
winter, but I suppose I've left the dear old school foreverif I have good
luck, that is."
"It won't be a bit the same. Miss Stacy won't be there, nor you nor
Jane nor Ruby probably. I shall have to sit all alone, for I couldn't bear
to have another deskmate after you. Oh, we have had jolly times, haven't
we, Anne? It's dreadful to think they're all over."
Two big tears rolled down by Diana's nose.
"If you would stop crying I could," said Anne imploringly. "Just as
soon as I put away my hanky I see you brimming up and that starts me off
again. As Mrs. Lynde says, `If you can't be cheerful, be as cheerful as
you can.' After all, I dare say I'll be back next year. This is one of the
times I KNOW I'm not going to pass. They're getting alarmingly frequent."
"Why, you came out splendidly in the exams Miss Stacy gave."
"Yes, but those exams didn't make me nervous. When I think of the
real thing you can't imagine what a horrid cold fluttery feeling comes
round my heart. And then my number is thirteen and Josie Pye says it's so
unlucky. I am NOT superstitious and I know it can make no difference. But
still I wish it wasn't thirteen."
"I do wish I was going in with you," said Diana. "Wouldn't we have a
perfectly elegant time? But I suppose you'll have to cram in the evenings."
"No; Miss Stacy has made us promise not to open a book at all. She
says it would only tire and confuse us and we are to go out walking and
not think about the exams at all and go to bed early. It's good advice,
but I expect it will be hard to follow; good advice is apt to be, I think.
Prissy Andrews told me that she sat up half the night every night of her
Entrance week and crammed for dear life; and I had determined to sit up AT
LEAST as long as she did. It was so kind of your Aunt Josephine to ask me
to stay at Beechwood while I'm in town."
"You'll write to me while you're in, won't you?"
"I'll write Tuesday night and tell you how the first day goes,"
promised Anne.
"I'll be haunting the post office Wednesday," vowed Diana.
Anne went to town the following Monday and on Wednesday Diana haunted
the post office, as agreed, and got her letter.

"Dearest Diana" [wrote Anne],
"Here it is Tuesday night and I'm writing this in the library at
Beechwood. Last night I was horribly lonesome all alone in my room and
wished so much you were with me. I couldn't "cram" because I'd promised
Miss Stacy not to, but it was as hard to keep from opening my history as
it used to be to keep from reading a story before my lessons were learned.
"This morning Miss Stacy came for me and we went to the Academy,
calling for Jane and Ruby and Josie on our way. Ruby asked me to feel her
hands and they were as cold as ice. Josie said I looked as if I hadn't
slept a wink and she didn't believe I was strong enough to stand the grind
of the teacher's course even if I did get through. There are times and
seasons even yet when I don't feel that I've made any great headway in
learning to like Josie Pye!
"When we reached the Academy there were scores of students there from
all over the Island. The first person we saw was Moody Spurgeon sitting on
the steps and muttering away to himself. Jane asked him what on earth he
was doing and he said he was repeating the multiplication table over and
over to steady his nerves and for pity's sake not to interrupt him,
because if he stopped for a moment he got frightened and forgot everything
he ever knew, but the multiplication table kept all his facts firmly in
their proper place!
"When we were assigned to our rooms Miss Stacy had to leave us. Jane
and I sat together and Jane was so composed that I envied sensible her. No
need of the multiplication table for good, steady, sensible Jane! I
wondered if I looked as I felt and if they could hear my heart thumping
clear across the room. Then a man came in and began distributing the
English examination sheets. My hands grew cold then and my head fairly
whirled around as I picked it up. Just one awful moment-Diana, I felt
exactly as I did four years ago when I asked Marilla if I might stay at
Green Gables-and then everything cleared up in my mind and my heart began
beating again-I forgot to say that it had stopped altogether!-for I knew I
could do something with THAT paper anyhow.
"At noon we went home for dinner and then back again for history in
the afternoon. The history was a pretty hard paper and I got dreadfully
mixed up in the dates. Still, I think I did fairly well today. But oh,
Diana, tomorrow the geometry exam comes off and when I think of it it
takes every bit of determination I possess to keep from opening my Euclid.
If I thought the multiplication table would help me any I would recite it
from now till tomorrow morning.
"I went down to see the other girls this evening. On my way I met
Moody Spurgeon wandering distractedly around. He said he knew he had
failed in history and he was born to be a disappointment to his parents
and he was going home on the morning train; and it would be easier to be a
carpenter than a minister, anyhow. I cheered him up and persuaded him to
stay to the end because it would be unfair to Miss Stacy if he didn't.
Sometimes I have wished I was born a boy, but when I see Moody Spurgeon
I'm always glad I'm a girl and not his sister.
"Ruby was in hysterics when I reached their boardinghouse; she had
just discovered a fearful mistake she had made in her English paper. When
she recovered we went uptown and had an ice cream. How we wished you had
been with us.
"Oh, Diana, if only the geometry examination were over! But there, as
Mrs. Lynde would say, the sun will go on rising and setting whether I fail
in geometry or not. That is true but not especially comforting. I think
I'd rather it didn't go on if I failed!
Yours devotedly,
Anne"

The geometry examination and all the others were over in due time and
Anne arrived home on Friday evening, rather tired but with an air of
chastened triumph about her. Diana was over at Green Gables when she
arrived and they met as if they had been parted for years.
"You old darling, it's perfectly splendid to see you back again. It
seems like an age since you went to town and oh, Anne, how did you get
along?"
"Pretty well, I think, in everything but the geometry. I don't know
whether I passed in it or not and I have a creepy, crawly presentiment
that I didn't. Oh, how good it is to be back! Green Gables is the dearest,
loveliest spot in the world."
"How did the others do?"
"The girls say they know they didn't pass, but I think they did
pretty well. Josie says the geometry was so easy a child of ten could do
it! Moody Spurgeon still thinks he failed in history and Charlie says he
failed in algebra. But we don't really know anything about it and won't
until the pass list is out. That won't be for a fortnight. Fancy living a
fortnight in such suspense! I wish I could go to sleep and never wake up
until it is over."
Diana knew it would be useless to ask how Gilbert Blythe had fared,
so she merely said:
"Oh, you'll pass all right. Don't worry."
"I'd rather not pass at all than not come out pretty well up on the
list," flashed Anne, by which she meant-and Diana knew she meant-that
success would be incomplete and bitter if she did not come out ahead of
Gilbert Blythe.
With this end in view Anne had strained every nerve during the
examinations. So had Gilbert. They had met and passed each other on the
street a dozen times without any sign of recognition and every time Anne
had held her head a little higher and wished a little more earnestly that
she had made friends with Gilbert when he asked her, and vowed a little
more determinedly to surpass him in the examination. She knew that all
Avonlea junior was wondering which would come out first; she even knew
that Jimmy Glover and Ned Wright had a bet on the question and that Josie
Pye had said there was no doubt in the world that Gilbert would be first;
and she felt that her humiliation would be unbearable if she failed.
But she had another and nobler motive for wishing to do well. She
wanted to "pass high" for the sake of Matthew and Marillaespecially
Matthew. Matthew had declared to her his conviction that she "would beat
the whole Island." That, Anne felt, was something it would be foolish to
hope for even in the wildest dreams. But she did hope fervently that she
would be among the first ten at least, so that she might see Matthew's
kindly brown eyes gleam with pride in her achievement. That, she felt,
would be a sweet reward indeed for all her hard work and patient grubbing
among unimaginative equations and conjugations.
At the end of the fortnight Anne took to "haunting" the post office
also, in the distracted company of Jane, Ruby, and Josie, opening the
Charlottetown dailies with shaking hands and cold, sinkaway feelings as
bad as any experienced during the Entrance week. Charlie and Gilbert were
not above doing this too, but Moody Spurgeon stayed resolutely away.
"I haven't got the grit to go there and look at a paper in cold
blood," he told Anne. "I'm just going to wait until somebody comes and
tells me suddenly whether I've passed or not."
When three weeks had gone by without the pass list appearing Anne
began to feel that she really couldn't stand the strain much longer. Her
appetite failed and her interest in Avonlea doings languished. Mrs. Lynde
wanted to know what else you could expect with a Tory superintendent of
education at the head of affairs, and Matthew, noting Anne's paleness and
indifference and the lagging steps that bore her home from the post office
every afternoon, began seriously to wonder if he hadn't better vote Grit
at the next election.
But one evening the news came. Anne was sitting at her open window,
for the time forgetful of the woes of examinations and the cares of the
world, as she drank in the beauty of the summer dusk, sweet-scented with
flower breaths from the garden below and sibilant and rustling from the
stir of poplars. The eastern sky above the firs was flushed faintly pink
from the reflection of the west, and Anne was wondering dreamily if the
spirit of color looked like that, when she saw Diana come flying down
through the firs, over the log bridge, and up the slope, with a fluttering
newspaper in her hand.
Anne sprang to her feet, knowing at once what that paper contained.
The pass list was out! Her head whirled and her heart beat until it hurt
her. She could not move a step. It seemed an hour to her before Diana came
rushing along the hall and burst into the room without even knocking, so
great was her excitement.
"Anne, you've passed," she cried, "passed the VERY FIRST-you and
Gilbert both-you're ties-but your name is first. Oh, I'm so proud!"
Diana flung the paper on the table and herself on Anne's bed, utterly
breathless and incapable of further speech. Anne lighted the lamp,
oversetting the match safe and using up half a dozen matches before her
shaking hands could accomplish the task. Then she snatched up the paper.
Yes, she had passed-there was her name at the very top of a list of two
hundred! That moment was worth living for.
"You did just splendidly, Anne," puffed Diana, recovering
sufficiently to sit up and speak, for Anne, starry eyed and rapt, had not
uttered a word. "Father brought the paper home from Bright River not ten
minutes ago-it came out on the afternoon train, you know, and won't be
here till tomorrow by mail-and when I saw the pass list I just rushed over
like a wild thing. You've all passed, every one of you, Moody Spurgeon and
all, although he's conditioned in history. Jane and Ruby did pretty
well-they're halfway up-and so did Charlie. Josie just scraped through
with three marks to spare, but you'll see she'll put on as many airs as if
she'd led. Won't Miss Stacy be delighted? Oh, Anne, what does it feel like
to see your name at the head of a pass list like that? If it were me I
know I'd go crazy with joy. I am pretty near crazy as it is, but you're as
calm and cool as a spring evening."
"I'm just dazzled inside," said Anne. "I want to say a hundred
things, and I can't find words to say them in. I never dreamed of
this-yes, I did too, just once! I let myself think ONCE, `What if I should
come out first?' quakingly, you know, for it seemed so vain and
presumptuous to think I could lead the Island. Excuse me a minute, Diana.
I must run right out to the field to tell Matthew. Then we'll go up the
road and tell the good news to the others."
They hurried to the hayfield below the barn where Matthew was coiling
hay, and, as luck would have it, Mrs. Lynde was talking to Marilla at the
lane fence.
"Oh, Matthew," exclaimed Anne, "I've passed and I'm first-or one of
the first! I'm not vain, but I'm thankful."
"Well now, I always said it," said Matthew, gazing at the pass list
delightedly. "I knew you could beat them all easy."
"You've done pretty well, I must say, Anne," said Marilla, trying to
hide her extreme pride in Anne from Mrs. Rachel's critical eye. But that
good soul said heartily:
"I just guess she has done well, and far be it from me to be backward
in saying it. You're a credit to your friends, Anne, that's what, and
we're all proud of you."
That night Anne, who had wound up the delightful evening with a
serious little talk with Mrs. Allan at the manse, knelt sweetly by her
open window in a great sheen of moonshine and murmured a prayer of
gratitude and aspiration that came straight from her heart. There was in
it thankfulness for the past and reverent petition for the future; and
when she slept on her white pillow her dreams were as fair and bright and
beautiful as maidenhood might desire.

33. The Hotel Concert

Put on your white organdy, by all means, Anne," advised Diana
decidedly.
They were together in the east gable chamber; outside it was only
twilight-a lovely yellowish-green twilight with a clear-blue cloudless
sky. A big round moon, slowly deepening from her pallid luster into
burnished silver, hung over the Haunted Wood; the air was full of sweet
summer sounds-sleepy birds twittering, freakish breezes, faraway voices
and laughter. But in Anne's room the blind was drawn and the lamp lighted,
for an important toilet was being made.
The east gable was a very different place from what it had been on
that night four years before, when Anne had felt its bareness penetrate to
the marrow of her spirit with its inhospitable chill. Changes had crept
in, Marilla conniving at them resignedly, until it was as sweet and dainty
a nest as a young girl could desire.
The velvet carpet with the pink roses and the pink silk curtains of
Anne's early visions had certainly never materialized; but her dreams had
kept pace with her growth, and it is not probable she lamented them. The
floor was covered with a pretty matting, and the curtains that softened
the high window and fluttered in the vagrant breezes were of pale-green
art muslin. The walls, hung not with gold and silver brocade tapestry, but
with a dainty apple-blossom paper, were adorned with a few good pictures
given Anne by Mrs. Allan. Miss Stacy's photograph occupied the place of
honor, and Anne made a sentimental point of keeping fresh flowers on the
bracket under it. Tonight a spike of white lilies faintly perfumed the
room like the dream of a fragrance. There was no "mahogany furniture," but
there was a white-painted bookcase filled with books, a cushioned wicker
rocker, a toilet table befrilled with white muslin, a quaint, gilt-framed
mirror with chubby pink Cupids and purple grapes painted over its arched
top, that used to hang in the spare room, and a low white bed.
Anne was dressing for a concert at the White Sands Hotel. The guests
had got it up in aid of the Charlottetown hospital, and had hunted out all
the available amateur talent in the surrounding districts to help it
along. Bertha Sampson and Pearl Clay of the White Sands Baptist choir had
been asked to sing a duet; Milton Clark of Newbridge was to give a violin
solo; Winnie Adella Blair of Carmody was to sing a Scotch ballad; and
Laura Spencer of Spencervale and Anne Shirley of Avonlea were to recite.
As Anne would have said at one time, it was "an epoch in her life,"
and she was deliciously athrill with the excitement of it. Matthew was in
the seventh heaven of gratified pride over the honor conferred on his Anne
and Marilla was not far behind, although she would have died rather than
admit it, and said she didn't think it was very proper for a lot of young
folks to be gadding over to the hotel without any responsible person with
them.
Anne and Diana were to drive over with Jane Andrews and her brother
Billy in their double-seated buggy; and several other Avonlea girls and
boys were going too. There was a party of visitors expected out from town,
and after the concert a supper was to be given to the performers.
"Do you really think the organdy will be best?" queried Anne
anxiously. "I don't think it's as pretty as my blueflowered muslin-and it
certainly isn't so fashionable."
"But it suits you ever so much better," said Diana. "It's so soft
and frilly and clinging. The muslin is stiff, and makes you look too
dressed up. But the organdy seems as if it grew on you."
Anne sighed and yielded. Diana was beginning to have a reputation for
notable taste in dressing, and her advice on such subjects was much sought
after. She was looking very pretty herself on this particular night in a
dress of the lovely wild-rose pink, from which Anne was forever debarred;
but she was not to take any part in the concert, so her appearance was of
minor importance. All her pains were bestowed upon Anne, who, she vowed,
must, for the credit of Avonlea, be dressed and combed and adorned to the
Queen's taste.
"Pull out that frill a little more-so; here, let me tie your sash;
now for your slippers. I'm going to braid your hair in two thick braids,
and tie them halfway up with big white bows-no, don't pull out a single
curl over your forehead-just have the soft part. There is no way you do
your hair suits you so well, Anne, and Mrs. Allan says you look like a
Madonna when you part it so. I shall fasten this little white house rose
just behind your ear. There was just one on my bush, and I saved it for
you."
"Shall I put my pearl beads on?" asked Anne. "Matthew brought me a
string from town last week, and I know he'd like to see them on me."
Diana pursed up her lips, put her black head on one side critically,
and finally pronounced in favor of the beads, which were thereupon tied
around Anne's slim milk-white throat.
"There's something so stylish about you, Anne," said Diana, with
unenvious admiration. "You hold your head with such an air. I suppose it's
your figure. I am just a dumpling. I've always been afraid of it, and now
I know it is so. Well, I suppose I shall just have to resign myself to it."
"But you have such dimples," said Anne, smiling affectionately into
the pretty, vivacious face so near her own. "Lovely dimples, like little
dents in cream. I have given up all hope of dimples. My dimple-dream will
never come true; but so many of my dreams have that I mustn't complain. Am
I all ready now?"
"All ready," assured Diana, as Marilla appeared in the doorway, a
gaunt figure with grayer hair than of yore and no fewer angles, but with a
much softer face. "Come right in and look at our elocutionist, Marilla.
Doesn't she look lovely?"
Marilla emitted a sound between a sniff and a grunt.
"She looks neat and proper. I like that way of fixing her hair. But I
expect she'll ruin that dress driving over there in the dust and dew with
it, and it looks most too thin for these damp nights. Organdy's the most
unserviceable stuff in the world anyhow, and I told Matthew so when he got
it. But there is no use in saying anything to Matthew nowadays. Time was
when he would take my advice, but now he just buys things for Anne
regardless, and the clerks at Carmody know they can palm anything off on
him. Just let them tell him a thing is pretty and fashionable, and Matthew
plunks his money down for it. Mind you keep your skirt clear of the wheel,
Anne, and put your warm jacket on."
Then Marilla stalked downstairs, thinking proudly how sweet Anne
looked, with that

"One moonbeam from the forehead to the crown"

and regretting that she could not go to the concert herself to hear
her girl recite.
"I wonder if it IS too damp for my dress," said Anne anxiously.
"Not a bit of it," said Diana, pulling up the window blind. "It's a
perfect night, and there won't be any dew. Look at the moonlight."
"I'm so glad my window looks east into the sunrising," said Anne,
going over to Diana. "It's so splendid to see the morning coming up over
those long hills and glowing through those sharp fir tops. It's new every
morning, and I feel as if I washed my very soul in that bath of earliest
sunshine. Oh, Diana, I love this little room so dearly. I don't know how
I'll get along without it when I go to town next month."
"Don't speak of your going away tonight," begged Diana. "I don't want
to think of it, it makes me so miserable, and I do want to have a good
time this evening. What are you going to recite, Anne? And are you
nervous?"
"Not a bit. I've recited so often in public I don't mind at all now.
I've decided to give `The Maiden's Vow.' It's so pathetic. Laura Spencer
is going to give a comic recitation, but I'd rather make people cry than
laugh."
"What will you recite if they encore you?"
"They won't dream of encoring me," scoffed Anne, who was not without
her own secret hopes that they would, and already visioned herself telling
Matthew all about it at the next morning's breakfast table. "There are
Billy and Jane nowI hear the wheels. Come on."
Billy Andrews insisted that Anne should ride on the front seat with
him, so she unwillingly climbed up. She would have much preferred to sit
back with the girls, where she could have laughed and chattered to her
heart's content. There was not much of either laughter or chatter in
Billy. He was a big, fat, stolid youth of twenty, with a round,
expressionless face, and a painful lack of conversational gifts. But he
admired Anne immensely, and was puffed up with pride over the prospect of
driving to White Sands with that slim, upright figure beside him.
Anne, by dint of talking over her shoulder to the girls and
occasionally passing a sop of civility to Billy-who grinned and chuckled
and never could think of any reply until it was too late-contrived to
enjoy the drive in spite of all. It was a night for enjoyment. The road
was full of buggies, all bound for the hotel, and laughter, silver clear,
echoed and reechoed along it. When they reached the hotel it was a blaze
of light from top to bottom. They were met by the ladies of the concert
committee, one of whom took Anne off to the performers' dressing room
which was filled with the members of a Charlottetown Symphony Club, among
whom Anne felt suddenly shy and frightened and countrified. Her dress,
which, in the east gable, had seemed so dainty and pretty, now seemed
simple and plain-too simple and plain, she thought, among all the silks
and laces that glistened and rustled around her. What were her pearl beads
compared to the diamonds of the big, handsome lady near her? And how poor
her one wee white rose must look beside all the hothouse flowers the
others wore! Anne laid her hat and jacket away, and shrank miserably into
a corner. She wished herself back in the white room at Green Gables.
It was still worse on the platform of the big concert hall of the
hotel, where she presently found herself. The electric lights dazzled her
eyes, the perfume and hum bewildered her. She wished she were sitting down
in the audience with Diana and Jane, who seemed to be having a splendid
time away at the back. She was wedged in between a stout lady in pink silk
and a tall, scornful-looking girl in a white-lace dress. The stout lady
occasionally turned her head squarely around and surveyed Anne through her
eyeglasses until Anne, acutely sensitive of being so scrutinized, felt
that she must scream aloud; and the white-lace girl kept talking audibly
to her next neighbor about the "country bumpkins" and "rustic belles" in
the audience, languidly anticipating "such fun', from the displays of
local talent on the program. Anne believed that she would hate that
white-lace girl to the end of life.
Unfortunately for Anne, a professional elocutionist was staying at
the hotel and had consented to recite. She was a lithe, dark-eyed woman in
a wonderful gown of shimmering gray stuff like woven moonbeams, with gems
on her neck and in her dark hair. She had a marvelously flexible voice and
wonderful power of expression; the audience went wild over her selection.
Anne, forgetting all about herself and her troubles for the time, listened
with rapt and shining eyes; but when the recitation ended she suddenly put
her hands over her face. She could never get up and recite after
that-never. Had she ever thought she could recite? Oh, if she were only
back at Green Gables!
At this unpropitious moment her name was called. Somehow Anne-who did
not notice the rather guilty little start of surprise the white-lace girl
gave, and would not have understood the subtle compliment implied therein
if she had-got on her feet, and moved dizzily out to the front. She was so
pale that Diana and Jane, down in the audience, clasped each other's hands
in nervous sympathy.
Anne was the victim of an overwhelming attack of stage fright. Often
as she had recited in public, she had never before faced such an audience
as this, and the sight of it paralyzed her energies completely. Everything
was so strange, so brilliant, so bewildering-the rows of ladies in evening
dress, the critical faces, the whole atmosphere of wealth and culture
about her. Very different this from the plain benches at the Debating
Club, filled with the homely, sympathetic faces of friends and neighbors.
These people, she thought, would be merciless critics. Perhaps, like the
white-lace girl, they anticipated amusem*nt from her "rustic" efforts. She
felt hopelessly, helplessly ashamed and miserable. Her knees trembled, her
heart fluttered, a horrible faintness came over her; not a word could she
utter, and the next moment she would have fled from the platform despite
the humiliation which, she felt, must ever after be her portion if she did
so.
But suddenly, as her dilated, frightened eyes gazed out over the
audience, she saw Gilbert Blythe away at the back of the room, bending
forward with a smile on his face-a smile which seemed to Anne at once
triumphant and taunting. In reality it was nothing of the kind. Gilbert
was merely smiling with appreciation of the whole affair in general and of
the effect produced by Anne's slender white form and spiritual face
against a background of palms in particular. Josie Pye, whom he had driven
over, sat beside him, and her face certainly was both triumphant and
taunting. But Anne did not see Josie, and would not have cared if she had.
She drew a long breath and flung her head up proudly, courage and
determination tingling over her like an electric shock. She WOULD NOT fail
before Gilbert Blythe-he should never be able to laugh at her, never,
never! Her fright and nervousness vanished; and she began her recitation,
her clear, sweet voice reaching to the farthest corner of the room without
a tremor or a break. Self-possession was fully restored to her, and in the
reaction from that horrible moment of powerlessness she recited as she had
never done before. When she finished there were bursts of honest applause.
Anne, stepping back to her seat, blushing with shyness and delight, found
her hand vigorously clasped and shaken by the stout lady in pink silk.
"My dear, you did splendidly," she puffed. "I've been crying like a
baby, actually I have. There, they're encoring youthey're bound to have
you back!"
"Oh, I can't go," said Anne confusedly. "But yet-I must, or Matthew
will be disappointed. He said they would encore me."
"Then don't disappoint Matthew," said the pink lady, laughing.
Smiling, blushing, limpid eyed, Anne tripped back and gave a quaint,
funny little selection that captivated her audience still further. The
rest of the evening was quite a little triumph for her.
When the concert was over, the stout, pink lady-who was the wife of
an American millionaire-took her under her wing, and introduced her to
everybody; and everybody was very nice to her. The professional
elocutionist, Mrs. Evans, came and chatted with her, telling her that she
had a charming voice and "interpreted" her selections beautifully. Even
the white-lace girl paid her a languid little compliment. They had supper
in the big, beautifully decorated dining room; Diana and Jane were invited
to partake of this, also, since they had come with Anne, but Billy was
nowhere to be found, having decamped in mortal fear of some such
invitation. He was in waiting for them, with the team, however, when it
was all over, and the three girls came merrily out into the calm, white
moonshine radiance. Anne breathed deeply, and looked into the clear sky
beyond the dark boughs of the firs.
Oh, it was good to be out again in the purity and silence of the
night! How great and still and wonderful everything was, with the murmur
of the sea sounding through it and the darkling cliffs beyond like grim
giants guarding enchanted coasts.
"Hasn't it been a perfectly splendid time?" sighed Jane, as they
drove away. "I just wish I was a rich American and could spend my summer
at a hotel and wear jewels and low-necked dresses and have ice cream and
chicken salad every blessed day. I'm sure it would be ever so much more
fun than teaching school. Anne, your recitation was simply great, although
I thought at first you were never going to begin. I think it was better
than Mrs. Evans's."
"Oh, no, don't say things like that, Jane," said Anne quickly,
"because it sounds silly. It couldn't be better than Mrs. Evans's, you
know, for she is a professional, and I'm only a schoolgirl, with a little
knack of reciting. I'm quite satisfied if the people just liked mine
pretty well."
"I've a compliment for you, Anne," said Diana. "At least I think it
must be a compliment because of the tone he said it in. Part of it was
anyhow. There was an American sitting behind Jane and me-such a
romantic-looking man, with coal-black hair and eyes. Josie Pye says he is
a distinguished artist, and that her mother's cousin in Boston is married
to a man that used to go to school with him. Well, we heard him say-didn't
we, Jane?-`Who is that girl on the platform with the splendid Titian hair?
She has a face I should like to paint.' There now, Anne. But what does
Titian hair mean?"
"Being interpreted it means plain red, I guess," laughed Anne.
"Titian was a very famous artist who liked to paint red-haired women."
"DID you see all the diamonds those ladies wore?" sighed Jane. "They
were simply dazzling. Wouldn't you just love to be rich, girls?"
"We ARE rich," said Anne staunchly. "Why, we have sixteen years to
our credit, and we're happy as queens, and we've all got imaginations,
more or less. Look at that sea, girls-all silver and shadow and vision of
things not seen. We couldn't enjoy its loveliness any more if we had
millions of dollars and ropes of diamonds. You wouldn't change into any of
those women if you could. Would you want to be that white-lace girl and
wear a sour look all your life, as if you'd been born turning up your nose
at the world? Or the pink lady, kind and nice as she is, so stout and
short that you'd really no figure at all? Or even Mrs. Evans, with that
sad, sad look in her eyes? She must have been dreadfully unhappy sometime
to have such a look. You KNOW you wouldn't, Jane Andrews!"
"I DON'T know-exactly," said Jane unconvinced. "I think diamonds
would comfort a person for a good deal."
"Well, I don't want to be anyone but myself, even if I go uncomforted
by diamonds all my life," declared Anne. "I'm quite content to be Anne of
Green Gables, with my string of pearl beads. I know Matthew gave me as
much love with them as ever went with Madame the Pink Lady's jewels."

34. A Queen's Girl

The next three weeks were busy ones at Green Gables, for Anne was
getting ready to go to Queen's, and there was much sewing to be done, and
many things to be talked over and arranged. Anne's outfit was ample and
pretty, for Matthew saw to that, and Marilla for once made no objections
whatever to anything he purchased or suggested. Moreone evening she went
up to the east gable with her arms full of a delicate pale green material.
"Anne, here's something for a nice light dress for you. I don't
suppose you really need it; you've plenty of pretty waists; but I thought
maybe you'd like something real dressy to wear if you were asked out
anywhere of an evening in town, to a party or anything like that. I hear
that Jane and Ruby and Josie have got `evening dresses,' as they call
them, and I don't mean you shall be behind them. I got Mrs. Allan to help
me pick it in town last week, and we'll get Emily Gillis to make it for
you. Emily has got taste, and her fits aren't to be equaled."
"Oh, Marilla, it's just lovely," said Anne. "Thank you so much. I
don't believe you ought to be so kind to me-it's making it harder every
day for me to go away."
The green dress was made up with as many tucks and frills and
shirrings as Emily's taste permitted. Anne put it on one evening for
Matthew's and Marilla's benefit, and recited "The Maiden's Vow" for them
in the kitchen. As Marilla watched the bright, animated face and graceful
motions her thoughts went back to the evening Anne had arrived at Green
Gables, and memory recalled a vivid picture of the odd, frightened child
in her preposterous yellowish-brown wincey dress, the heartbreak looking
out of her tearful eyes. Something in the memory brought tears to
Marilla's own eyes.
"I declare, my recitation has made you cry, Marilla," said Anne gaily
stooping over Marilla's chair to drop a butterfly kiss on that lady's
cheek. "Now, I call that a positive triumph."
"No, I wasn't crying over your piece," said Marilla, who would have
scorned to be betrayed into such weakness by any "poetry stuff." "I just
couldn't help thinking of the little girl you used to be, Anne. And I was
wishing you could have stayed a little girl, even with all your queer
ways. You've grown up now and you're going away; and you look so tall and
stylish and so-so-different altogether in that dress-as if you didn't
belong in Avonlea at alland I just got lonesome thinking it all over."
"Marilla!" Anne sat down on Marilla's gingham lap, took Marilla's
lined face between her hands, and looked gravely and tenderly into
Marilla's eyes. "I'm not a bit changednot really. I'm only just pruned
down and branched out. The real ME-back here-is just the same. It won't
make a bit of difference where I go or how much I change outwardly; at
heart I shall always be your little Anne, who will love you and Matthew
and dear Green Gables more and better every day of her life."
Anne laid her fresh young cheek against Marilla's faded one, and
reached out a hand to pat Matthew's shoulder. Marilla would have given
much just then to have possessed Anne's power of putting her feelings into
words; but nature and habit had willed it otherwise, and she could only
put her arms close about her girl and hold her tenderly to her heart,
wishing that she need never let her go.
Matthew, with a suspicious moisture in his eyes, got up and went
out-of-doors. Under the stars of the blue summer night he walked
agitatedly across the yard to the gate under the poplars.
"Well now, I guess she ain't been much spoiled," he muttered,
proudly. "I guess my putting in my oar occasional never did much harm
after all. She's smart and pretty, and loving, too, which is better than
all the rest. She's been a blessing to us, and there never was a luckier
mistake than what Mrs. Spencer made-if it WAS luck. I don't believe it was
any such thing. It was Providence, because the Almighty saw we needed her,
I reckon."
The day finally came when Anne must go to town. She and Matthew drove
in one fine September morning, after a tearful parting with Diana and an
untearful practical oneon Marilla's side at least-with Marilla. But when
Anne had gone Diana dried her tears and went to a beach picnic at White
Sands with some of her Carmody cousins, where she contrived to enjoy
herself tolerably well; while Marilla plunged fiercely into unnecessary
work and kept at it all day long with the bitterest kind of heartache-the
ache that burns and gnaws and cannot wash itself away in ready tears. But
that night, when Marilla went to bed, acutely and miserably conscious that
the little gable room at the end of the hall was untenanted by any vivid
young life and unstirred by any soft breathing, she buried her face in her
pillow, and wept for her girl in a passion of sobs that appalled her when
she grew calm enough to reflect how very wicked it must be to take on so
about a sinful fellow creature.
Anne and the rest of the Avonlea scholars reached town just in time
to hurry off to the Academy. That first day passed pleasantly enough in a
whirl of excitement, meeting all the new students, learning to know the
professors by sight and being assorted and organized into classes. Anne
intended taking up the Second Year work being advised to do so by Miss
Stacy; Gilbert Blythe elected to do the same. This meant getting a First
Class teacher's license in one year instead of two, if they were
successful; but it also meant much more and harder work. Jane, Ruby,
Josie, Charlie, and Moody Spurgeon, not being troubled with the stirrings
of ambition, were content to take up the Second Class work. Anne was
conscious of a pang of loneliness when she found herself in a room with
fifty other students, not one of whom she knew, except the tall,
brown-haired boy across the room; and knowing him in the fashion she did,
did not help her much, as she reflected pessimistically. Yet she was
undeniably glad that they were in the same class; the old rivalry could
still be carried on, and Anne would hardly have known what to do if it had
been lacking.
"I wouldn't feel comfortable without it," she thought. "Gilbert looks
awfully determined. I suppose he's making up his mind, here and now, to
win the medal. What a splendid chin he has! I never noticed it before. I
do wish Jane and Ruby had gone in for First Class, too. I suppose I won't
feel so much like a cat in a strange garret when I get acquainted, though.
I wonder which of the girls here are going to be my friends. It's really
an interesting speculation. Of course I promised Diana that no Queen's
girl, no matter how much I liked her, should ever be as dear to me as she
is; but I've lots of second-best affections to bestow. I like the look of
that girl with the brown eyes and the crimson waist. She looks vivid and
red-rosy; there's that pale, fair one gazing out of the window. She has
lovely hair, and looks as if she knew a thing or two about dreams. I'd
like to know them both-know them well-well enough to walk with my arm
about their waists, and call them nicknames. But just now I don't know
them and they don't know me, and probably don't want to know me
particularly. Oh, it's lonesome!"
It was lonesomer still when Anne found herself alone in her hall
bedroom that night at twilight. She was not to board with the other girls,
who all had relatives in town to take pity on them. Miss Josephine Barry
would have liked to board her, but Beechwood was so far from the Academy
that it was out of the question; so miss Barry hunted up a boarding-house,
assuring Matthew and Marilla that it was the very place for Anne.
"The lady who keeps it is a reduced gentlewoman," explained Miss
Barry. "Her husband was a British officer, and she is very careful what
sort of boarders she takes. Anne will not meet with any objectionable
persons under her roof. The table is good, and the house is near the
Academy, in a quiet neighborhood."
All this might be quite true, and indeed, proved to be so, but it did
not materially help Anne in the first agony of homesickness that seized
upon her. She looked dismally about her narrow little room, with its
dull-papered, pictureless walls, its small iron bedstead and empty
bookcase; and a horrible choke came into her throat as she thought of her
own white room at Green Gables, where she would have the pleasant
consciousness of a great green still outdoors, of sweet peas growing in
the garden, and moonlight falling on the orchard, of the brook below the
slope and the spruce boughs tossing in the night wind beyond it, of a vast
starry sky, and the light from Diana's window shining out through the gap
in the trees. Here there was nothing of this; Anne knew that outside of
her window was a hard street, with a network of telephone wires shutting
out the sky, the tramp of alien feet, and a thousand lights gleaming on
stranger faces. She knew that she was going to cry, and fought against it.
"I WON'T cry. It's silly-and weak-there's the third tear splashing
down by my nose. There are more coming! I must think of something funny to
stop them. But there's nothing funny except what is connected with
Avonlea, and that only makes things worse-four-five-I'm going home next
Friday, but that seems a hundred years away. Oh, Matthew is nearly home by
now-and Marilla is at the gate, looking down the lane for
him-six-seven-eightoh, there's no use in counting them! They're coming in
a flood presently. I can't cheer up-I don't WANT to cheer up. It's nicer
to be miserable!"
The flood of tears would have come, no doubt, had not Josie Pye
appeared at that moment. In the joy of seeing a familiar face Anne forgot
that there had never been much love lost between her and Josie. As a part
of Avonlea life even a Pye was welcome.
"I'm so glad you came up." Anne said sincerely.
"You've been crying," remarked Josie, with aggravating pity. "I
suppose you're homesick-some people have so little self-control in that
respect. I've no intention of being homesick, I can tell you. Town's too
jolly after that poky old Avonlea. I wonder how I ever existed there so
long. You shouldn't cry, Anne; it isn't becoming, for your nose and eyes
get red, and then you see ALL red. I'd a perfectly scrumptious time in the
Academy today. Our French professor is simply a duck. His moustache would
give you kerwollowps of the heart. Have you anything eatable around, Anne?
I'm literally starving. Ah, I guessed likely Marilla'd load you up with
cake. That's why I called round. Otherwise I'd have gone to the park to
hear the band play with Frank Stockley. He boards same place as I do, and
he's a sport. He noticed you in class today, and asked me who the
red-headed girl was. I told him you were an orphan that the Cuthberts had
adopted, and nobody knew very much about what you'd been before that."
Anne was wondering if, after all, solitude and tears were not more
satisfactory than Josie Pye's companionship when Jane and Ruby appeared,
each with an inch of Queen's color ribbon-purple and scarlet-pinned
proudly to her coat. As Josie was not "speaking" to Jane just then she had
to subside into comparative harmlessness.
"Well," said Jane with a sigh, "I feel as if I'd lived many moons
since the morning. I ought to be home studying my Virgil-that horrid old
professor gave us twenty lines to start in on tomorrow. But I simply
couldn't settle down to study tonight. Anne, methinks I see the traces of
tears. If you've been crying DO own up. It will restore my self-respect,
for I was shedding tears freely before Ruby came along. I don't mind being
a goose so much if somebody else is goosey, too. Cake? You'll give me a
teeny piece, won't you? Thank you. It has the real Avonlea flavor."
Ruby, perceiving the Queen's calendar lying on the table, wanted to
know if Anne meant to try for the gold medal.
Anne blushed and admitted she was thinking of it.
"Oh, that reminds me," said Josie, "Queen's is to get one of the
Avery scholarships after all. The word came today. Frank Stockley told
me-his uncle is one of the board of governors, you know. It will be
announced in the Academy tomorrow."
An Avery scholarship! Anne felt her heart beat more quickly, and the
horizons of her ambition shifted and broadened as if by magic. Before
Josie had told the news Anne's highest pinnacle of aspiration had been a
teacher's provincial license, Class First, at the end of the year, and
perhaps the medal! But now in one moment Anne saw herself winning the
Avery scholarship, taking an Arts course at Redmond College, and
graduating in a gown and mortar board, before the echo of Josie's words
had died away. For the Avery scholarship was in English, and Anne felt
that here her foot was on native heath.
A wealthy manufacturer of New Brunswick had died and left part of his
fortune to endow a large number of scholarships to be distributed among
the various high schools and academics of the Maritime Provinces,
according to their respective standings. There had been much doubt whether
one would be allotted to Queen's, but the matter was settled at last, and
at the end of the year the graduate who made the highest mark in English
and English Literature would win the scholarshiptwo hundred and fifty
dollars a year for four years at Redmond College. No wonder that Anne went
to bed that night with tingling cheeks!
"I'll win that scholarship if hard work can do it," she resolved.
"Wouldn't Matthew be proud if I got to be a B.A.? Oh, it's delightful to
have ambitions. I'm so glad I have such a lot. And there never seems to be
any end to themthat's the best of it. Just as soon as you attain to one
ambition you see another one glittering higher up still. It does make life
so interesting."

35. The Winter at Queen's

Anne's homesickness wore off, greatly helped in the wearing by her
weekend visits home. As long as the open weather lasted the Avonlea
students went out to Carmody on the new branch railway every Friday night.
Diana and several other Avonlea young folks were generally on hand to meet
them and they all walked over to Avonlea in a merry party. Anne thought
those Friday evening gypsyings over the autumnal hills in the crisp golden
air, with the homelights of Avonlea twinkling beyond, were the best and
dearest hours in the whole week.
Gilbert Blythe nearly always walked with Ruby Gillis and carried her
satchel for her. Ruby was a very handsome young lady, now thinking herself
quite as grown up as she really was; she wore her skirts as long as her
mother would let her and did her hair up in town, though she had to take
it down when she went home. She had large, bright-blue eyes, a brilliant
complexion, and a plump showy figure. She laughed a great deal, was
cheerful and good-tempered, and enjoyed the pleasant things of life
frankly.
"But I shouldn't think she was the sort of girl Gilbert would like,"
whispered Jane to Anne. Anne did not think so either, but she would not
have said so for the Avery scholarship. She could not help thinking, too,
that it would be very pleasant to have such a friend as Gilbert to jest
and chatter with and exchange ideas about books and studies and ambitions.
Gilbert had ambitions, she knew, and Ruby Gillis did not seem the sort of
person with whom such could be profitably discussed.
There was no silly sentiment in Anne's ideas concerning Gilbert. Boys
were to her, when she thought about them at all, merely possible good
comrades. If she and Gilbert had been friends she would not have cared how
many other friends he had nor with whom he walked. She had a genius for
friendship; girl friends she had in plenty; but she had a vague
consciousness that masculine friendship might also be a good thing to
round out one's conceptions of companionship and furnish broader
standpoints of judgment and comparison. Not that Anne could have put her
feelings on the matter into just such clear definition. But she thought
that if Gilbert had ever walked home with her from the train, over the
crisp fields and along the ferny byways, they might have had many and
merry and interesting conversations about the new world that was opening
around them and their hopes and ambitions therein. Gilbert was a clever
young fellow, with his own thoughts about things and a determination to
get the best out of life and put the best into it. Ruby Gillis told Jane
Andrews that she didn't understand half the things Gilbert Blythe said; he
talked just like Anne Shirley did when she had a thoughtful fit on and for
her part she didn't think if any fun to be bothering about books and that
sort of thing when you didn't have to. Frank Stockley had lots more dash
and go, but then he wasn't half as good-looking as Gilbert and she really
couldn't decide which she liked best!
In the Academy Anne gradually drew a little circle of friends about
her, thoughtful, imaginative, ambitious students like herself. With the
"rose-red" girl, Stella Maynard, and the "dream girl," Priscilla Grant,
she soon became intimate, finding the latter pale spiritual-looking maiden
to be full to the brim of mischief and pranks and fun, while the vivid,
black-eyed Stella had a heartful of wistful dreams and fancies, as aerial
and rainbow-like as Anne's own.
After the Christmas holidays the Avonlea students gave up going home
on Fridays and settled down to hard work. By this time all the Queen's
scholars had gravitated into their own places in the ranks and the various
classes had assumed distinct and settled shadings of individuality.
Certain facts had become generally accepted. It was admitted that the
medal contestants had practically narrowed down to three-Gilbert Blythe,
Anne Shirley, and Lewis Wilson; the Avery scholarship was more doubtful,
any one of a certain six being a possible winner. The bronze medal for
mathematics was considered as good as won by a fat, funny little
up-country boy with a bumpy forehead and a patched coat.
Ruby Gillis was the handsomest girl of the year at the Academy; in
the Second Year classes Stella Maynard carried off the palm for beauty,
with small but critical minority in favor of Anne Shirley. Ethel Marr was
admitted by all competent judges to have the most stylish modes of
hair-dressing, and Jane Andrews-plain, plodding, conscientious
Jane-carried off the honors in the domestic science course. Even Josie Pye
attained a certain preeminence as the sharpesttongued young lady in
attendance at Queen's. So it may be fairly stated that Miss Stacy's old
pupil's held their own in the wider arena of the academical course.
Anne worked hard and steadily. Her rivalry with Gilbert was as
intense as it had ever been in Avonlea school, although it was not known
in the class at large, but somehow the bitterness had gone out of it. Anne
no longer wished to win for the sake of defeating Gilbert; rather, for the
proud consciousness of a well-won victory over a worthy foeman. It would
be worth while to win, but she no longer thought like would be
insupportable if she did not.
In spite of lessons the students found opportunities for pleasant
times. Anne spent many of her spare hours at Beechwood and generally ate
her Sunday dinners there and went to church with Miss Barry. The latter
was, as she admitted, growing old, but her black eyes were not dim nor the
vigor of her tongue in the least abated. But she never sharpened the
latter on Anne, who continued to be a prime favorite with the critical old
lady.
"That Anne-girl improves all the time," she said. "I get tired of
other girls-there is such a provoking and eternal sameness about them.
Anne has as many shades as a rainbow and every shade is the prettiest
while it lasts. I don't know that she is as amusing as she was when she
was a child, but she makes me love her and I like people who make me love
them. It saves me so much trouble in making myself love them."
Then, almost before anybody realized it, spring had come; out in
Avonlea the Mayflowers were peeping pinkly out on the sere barrens where
snow-wreaths lingered; and the "mist of green" was on the woods and in the
valleys. But in Charlottetown harassed Queen's students thought and talked
only of examinations.
"It doesn't seem possible that the term is nearly over," said Anne.
"Why, last fall it seemed so long to look forward to-a whole winter of
studies and classes. And here we are, with the exams looming up next week.
Girls, sometimes I feel as if those exams meant everything, but when I
look at the big buds swelling on those chestnut trees and the misty blue
air at the end of the streets they don't seem half so important."
Jane and Ruby and Josie, who had dropped in, did not take this view
of it. To them the coming examinations were constantly very important
indeed-far more important than chestnut buds or Maytime hazes. It was all
very well for Anne, who was sure of passing at least, to have her moments
of belittling them, but when your whole future depended on them-as the
girls truly thought theirs didyou could not regard them philosophically.
"I've lost seven pounds in the last two weeks," sighed Jane. "It's no
use to say don't worry. I WILL worry. Worrying helps you some-it seems as
if you were doing something when you're worrying. It would be dreadful if
I failed to get my license after going to Queen's all winter and spending
so much money."
"_I_ don't care," said Josie Pye. "If I don't pass this year I'm
coming back next. My father can afford to send me. Anne, Frank Stockley
says that Professor Tremaine said Gilbert Blythe was sure to get the medal
and that Emily Clay would likely win the Avery scholarship."
"That may make me feel badly tomorrow, Josie," laughed Anne, "but
just now I honestly feel that as long as I know the violets are coming out
all purple down in the hollow below Green Gables and that little ferns are
poking their heads up in Lovers' Lane, it's not a great deal of difference
whether I win the Avery or not. I've done my best and I begin to
understand what is meant by the `joy of the strife.' Next to trying and
winning, the best thing is trying and failing. Girls, don't talk about
exams! Look at that arch of pale green sky over those houses and picture
to yourself what it must look like over the purply-dark beech-woods back
of Avonlea."
"What are you going to wear for commencement, Jane?" asked Ruby
practically.
Jane and Josie both answered at once and the chatter drifted into a
side eddy of fashions. But Anne, with her elbows on the window sill, her
soft cheek laid against her clasped hands, and her eyes filled with
visions, looked out unheedingly across city roof and spire to that
glorious dome of sunset sky and wove her dreams of a possible future from
the golden tissue of youth's own optimism. All the Beyond was hers with
its possibilities lurking rosily in the oncoming years-each year a rose of
promise to be woven into an immortal chaplet.