Weekly classic film-related e-books from Meredy.com

Friday, April 17, 2009

Weekly Meredy.com E-book - Anne of Green Gables

I love reading the books on which many classic flicks are based. In fact, I collect them. I thought you might like to read them, too. So, I'm starting something new. A free classic movie-related e-book will be featured weekly on my blog. And there will be a surprise waiting for you at the end of each book. :)

For today, I've chosen an old favorite of mine: Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery.

Lucy Maud Montgomery CBE, (always called "Maud" by family and friends) and publicly known as L. M. Montgomery, (November 30, 1874–April 24, 1942) was a Canadian author, best known for a series of novels beginning with Anne of Green Gables, published in 1908.

Once published, Anne of Green Gables was an immediate success. The central character, Anne, an orphaned girl, made Montgomery famous in her lifetime and gave her an international following. The first novel was followed by a series of sequels with Anne as the central character.

It was written as fiction for readers of all ages, but in recent decades has been considered a children's book. Montgomery found her inspiration for the book on an old piece of paper that she had written at a young age, describing a couple that were mistakenly sent an orphan girl instead of a boy, yet decided to keep her. Montgomery also drew upon her own childhood experiences in rural Prince Edward Island. Montgomery used a photograph of Evelyn Nesbit, clipped from an American magazine and pasted on the wall above her writing desk, as the model for Anne Shirley, the book's main character.



Since publication, Anne of Green Gables has sold more than 50 million books. In addition, this widely loved book is taught to students around the world.

Film version

1934: Anne of Green Gables - directed by George Nichols, Jr., this black & white version was made with RCA Victor sound and starred Dawn O'Day as Anne. It is worth noting that after filming, O'Day changed her stage name to Anne Shirley.

Television movie

1985: Anne of Green Gables - a highly acclaimed made for television (CBC) 4 hour television mini series, it was directed by Kevin Sullivan with Megan Follows as Anne.






A Meredy.com E-book

Title: Anne of Green Gables (1908)
Author: L.M. Montgomery
Edition: 1
Language: English
Character set encoding: HTML--Latin-1(ISO-8859-1)--8 bit
Date first posted: February 2009
Date most recently updated: February 2009

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---

ANNE OF GREEN GABLES
By
Lucy Maud Montgomery



CHAPTER I. 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 pinky-white bloom, hummed over by a myriad of bees. Thomas Lynde--a 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 knew 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 next 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 the 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 a little odd, 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 her 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 sixty--and 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 station--saying 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 suck 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 to 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 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!" ejaculated 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.




CHAPTER II. 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 them--for 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 of the 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 station-master carelessly. "I dare say she'll be able to explain--she'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, which 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 woman-child 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 me--unless 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 alive--it'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 sidewise glances, as if
they  expected  him  to gobble them up at a mouthful if they ventured to say a word. That 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 feel 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. I read of a girl once
in  a  novel who had a 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-go-round 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 saw 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 bank 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.




CHAPTER III. 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 ejaculated. "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 station-master. 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!" ejaculated 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 out-of-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 it 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, low-turned posts. In the other corner was the aforesaid three-corner table adorned with a
fat, red velvet pin-cushion 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. Richard 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.




CHAPTER IV. 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 meant 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  to 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  as  it  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 tone 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.




CHAPTER V. 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 hand--reproachful-
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 over-crowded 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 most 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 than 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."




CHAPTER VI. 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  knew 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 thought of 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 wiggle. 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. More-over, 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 will 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."




CHAPTER VII. 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."




CHAPTER VIII. 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 circumstances 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 out 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 dinner-table--Marilla had eyed that decoration
askance, but had said nothing--propped 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, Miss--Marilla."

"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 bud, 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 Duchess 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 keep. 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 tones. 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
walls  are  hung with gold and silver brocade tapestry. 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.




CHAPTER IX. 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 well-defined 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 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 hollow--that 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 blooms, 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
half-deaf  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 myself--although 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? How 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 fair-sized 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 testimony--did 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 you--thoroughly 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 red-haired 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 amusement
and she felt a most reprehensible desire to laugh.




CHAPTER X. 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, slipped
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 uncomfortably 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 deter-
mined 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 over--that'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  under-stood  in dismay that Anne was actually enjoying her valley of humiliation--was reveling in the thoroughness of her abasement.
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 herself--a 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 be to goodness for that," breathed Marilla in devout relief.




CHAPTER XI. 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 black-and-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 wind-stirred
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 on when the
opening 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 inter-ested in it, either. I think he
thought  God  was  too far off though. There was a 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 gave 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 were
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.




CHAPTER XII. 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 saw you 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 playmate--perhaps 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 each other 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, "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."



CHAPTER XIII. 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 Idle-whatever-you-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?"




CHAPTER XIV. 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 circumstances 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 purply-sparkling,
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, mournfully 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."




CHAPTER XV. 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 open-mouthed 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 song--Jane 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."




CHAPTER XVI. 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 Blythe--

But 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.



CHAPTER XVII. 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 and her 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?"



CHAPTER XVIII. 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 I 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."



CHAPTER XIX. 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 amusement 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 heart-stirring 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 white-clad figures flew down the long room, through the spare-room 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 amusement 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 sitting-room 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 spare-room 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."




CHAPTER XX. 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 amusement. 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!" ejaculated 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 ghost-seer 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."




CHAPTER XXI. 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 ministers 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  mortification 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 stairs 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 mustn'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."




CHAPTER XXII. 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."




CHAPTER XXIII. 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 amusement 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 beneath--all 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 Gil--everybody 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."




CHAPTER XXIV. 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.




CHAPTER XXV. 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 peacock 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 green--they'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."




CHAPTER XXVI. 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."




CHAPTER XXVII. 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 Sunday-school 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.




CHAPTER XXVIII. 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 hair--Elaine 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  amusements 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 circumstances 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 circumstances!

"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."




CHAPTER XXIX. 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-be-forgotten 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 best time 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."



CHAPTER XXX. 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 out--although 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 is--if 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 back. 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 Mr. 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 overdone--something like them white June lilies she calls narcissus alongside of the big, red peonies,
that's what."




CHAPTER XXXI. 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.





CHAPTER XXXII. 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 circumstances 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 forever--if 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 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 Marilla--especially 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.




CHAPTER XXXIII. 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 blue-flowered 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 now--I 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 amusement 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 you--they'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."




CHAPTER XXXIV. 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. More--one 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 all--and 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 changed--not 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  one--on  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 book-
case;  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--eight--oh, 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 seem 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, First Class, 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  academies  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 scholarship--two 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 them--that'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."




CHAPTER XXXV. 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 it 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 sharpest-tongued 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 life 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 did--you 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.




CHAPTER XXXVI. The Glory and the Dream


On  the  morning when the final results of all the examinations were to be posted on the bulletin board at Queen's, Anne and Jane walked down the
street  together.  Jane  was  smiling  and  happy;  examinations  were  over  and  she was comfortably sure she had made a pass at least; further
considerations troubled Jane not at all; she had no soaring ambitions and consequently was not affected with the unrest attendant thereon. For we
pay  a price for everything we get or take in this world; and although ambitions are well worth having, they are not to be cheaply won, but exact
their dues of work and self-denial, anxiety and discouragement. Anne was pale and quiet; in ten more minutes she would know who had won the medal
and who the Avery. Beyond those ten minutes there did not seem, just then, to be anything worth being called Time.

"Of course you'll win one of them anyhow," said Jane, who couldn't understand how the faculty could be so unfair as to order it otherwise.

"I  have not hope of the Avery," said Anne. "Everybody says Emily Clay will win it. And I'm not going to march up to that bulletin board and look
at  it  before  everybody.  I haven't the moral courage. I'm going straight to the girls' dressing room. You must read the announcements and then
come  and  tell  me,  Jane.  And  I  implore you in the name of our old friendship to do it as quickly as possible. If I have failed just say so,
without trying to break it gently; and whatever you do DON'T sympathize with me. Promise me this, Jane."

Jane  promised  solemnly;  but,  as  it happened, there was no necessity for such a promise. When they went up the entrance steps of Queen's they
found  the  hall  full  of  boys  who were carrying Gilbert Blythe around on their shoulders and yelling at the tops of their voices, "Hurrah for
Blythe, Medalist!"

For  a  moment Anne felt one sickening pang of defeat and disappointment. So she had failed and Gilbert had won! Well, Matthew would be sorry--he
had been so sure she would win.

And then!

Somebody called out:

"Three cheers for Miss Shirley, winner of the Avery!"

"Oh, Anne," gasped Jane, as they fled to the girls' dressing room amid hearty cheers. "Oh, Anne I'm so proud! Isn't it splendid?"

And  then the girls were around them and Anne was the center of a laughing, congratulating group. Her shoulders were thumped and her hands shaken
vigorously. She was pushed and pulled and hugged and among it all she managed to whisper to Jane:

"Oh, won't Matthew and Marilla be pleased! I must write the news home right away."

Commencement  was  the  next  important  happening. The exercises were held in the big assembly hall of the Academy. Addresses were given, essays
read, songs sung, the public award of diplomas, prizes and medals made.

Matthew  and  Marilla were there, with eyes and ears for only one student on the platform--a tall girl in pale green, with faintly flushed cheeks
and starry eyes, who read the best essay and was pointed out and whispered about as the Avery winner.

"Reckon  you're  glad we kept her, Marilla?" whispered Matthew, speaking for the first time since he had entered the hall, when Anne had finished
her essay.

"It's not the first time I've been glad," retorted Marilla. "You do like to rub things in, Matthew Cuthbert."

Miss Barry, who was sitting behind them, leaned forward and poked Marilla in the back with her parasol.

"Aren't you proud of that Anne-girl? I am," she said.

Anne  went  home to Avonlea with Matthew and Marilla that evening. She had not been home since April and she felt that she could not wait another
day.  The  apple blossoms were out and the world was fresh and young. Diana was at Green Gables to meet her. In her own white room, where Marilla
had set a flowering house rose on the window sill, Anne looked about her and drew a long breath of happiness.

"Oh, Diana, it's so good to be back again. It's so good to see those pointed firs coming out against the pink sky--and that white orchard and the
old  Snow Queen. Isn't the breath of the mint delicious? And that tea rose--why, it's a song and a hope and a prayer all in one. And it's GOOD to
see you again, Diana!"

"I  thought  you  liked that Stella Maynard better than me," said Diana reproachfully. "Josie Pye told me you did. Josie said you were INFATUATED
with her."

Anne laughed and pelted Diana with the faded "June lilies" of her bouquet.

"Stella  Maynard is the dearest girl in the world except one and you are that one, Diana," she said. "I love you more than ever--and I've so many
things  to  tell  you.  But just now I feel as if it were joy enough to sit here and look at you. I'm tired, I think--tired of being studious and
ambitious. I mean to spend at least two hours tomorrow lying out in the orchard grass, thinking of absolutely nothing."

"You've done splendidly, Anne. I suppose you won't be teaching now that you've won the Avery?"

"No.  I'm  going  to  Redmond  in  September. Doesn't it seem wonderful? I'll have a brand new stock of ambition laid in by that time after three
glorious,  golden  months of vacation. Jane and Ruby are going to teach. Isn't it splendid to think we all got through even to Moody Spurgeon and
Josie Pye?"

"The  Newbridge trustees have offered Jane their school already," said Diana. "Gilbert Blythe is going to teach, too. He has to. His father can't
afford  to  send  him  to  college next year, after all, so he means to earn his own way through. I expect he'll get the school here if Miss Ames
decides to leave."

Anne  felt  a  queer little sensation of dismayed surprise. She had not known this; she had expected that Gilbert would be going to Redmond also.
What would she do without their inspiring rivalry? Would not work, even at a coeducational college with a real degree in prospect, be rather flat
without her friend the enemy?

The  next  morning  at  breakfast  it  suddenly  struck Anne that Matthew was not looking well. Surely he was much grayer than he had been a year
before.

"Marilla," she said hesitatingly when he had gone out, "is Matthew quite well?"

"No,  he  isn't,"  said  Marilla in a troubled tone. "He's had some real bad spells with his heart this spring and he won't spare himself a mite.
I've  been real worried about him, but he's some better this while back and we've got a good hired man, so I'm hoping he'll kind of rest and pick
up. Maybe he will now you're home. You always cheer him up."

Anne leaned across the table and took Marilla's face in her hands.

"You  are  not looking as well yourself as I'd like to see you, Marilla. You look tired. I'm afraid you've been working too hard. You must take a
rest,  now  that I'm home. I'm just going to take this one day off to visit all the dear old spots and hunt up my old dreams, and then it will be
your turn to be lazy while I do the work."

Marilla smiled affectionately at her girl.

"It's  not the work--it's my head. I've got a pain so often now--behind my eyes. Doctor Spencer's been fussing with glasses, but they don't do me
any  good.  There  is  a  distinguished oculist coming to the Island the last of June and the doctor says I must see him. I guess I'll have to. I
can't  read or sew with any comfort now. Well, Anne, you've done real well at Queen's I must say. To take First Class License in one year and win
the  Avery scholarship--well, well, Mrs. Lynde says pride goes before a fall and she doesn't believe in the higher education of women at all; she
says  it  unfits them for woman's true sphere. I don't believe a word of it. Speaking of Rachel reminds me--did you hear anything about the Abbey
Bank lately, Anne?"

"I heard it was shaky," answered Anne. "Why?"

"That  is what Rachel said. She was up here one day last week and said there was some talk about it. Matthew felt real worried. All we have saved
is in that bank--every penny. I wanted Matthew to put it in the Savings Bank in the first place, but old Mr. Abbey was a great friend of father's
and he'd always banked with him. Matthew said any bank with him at the head of it was good enough for anybody."

"I  think  he  has  only  been  its  nominal  head  for  many years," said Anne. "He is a very old man; his nephews are really at the head of the
institution."

"Well,  when  Rachel  told us that, I wanted Matthew to draw our money right out and he said he'd think of it. But Mr. Russell told him yesterday
that the bank was all right."

Anne  had  her  good day in the companionship of the outdoor world. She never forgot that day; it was so bright and golden and fair, so free from
shadow and so lavish of blossom. Anne spent some of its rich hours in the orchard; she went to the Dryad's Bubble and Willowmere and Violet Vale;
she called at the manse and had a satisfying talk with Mrs. Allan; and finally in the evening she went with Matthew for the cows, through Lovers'
Lane  to  the back pasture. The woods were all gloried through with sunset and the warm splendor of it streamed down through the hill gaps in the
west. Matthew walked slowly with bent head; Anne, tall and erect, suited her springing step to his.

"You've been working too hard today, Matthew," she said reproachfully. "Why won't you take things easier?"

"Well  now,  I  can't seem to," said Matthew, as he opened the yard gate to let the cows through. "It's only that I'm getting old, Anne, and keep
forgetting it. Well, well, I've always worked pretty hard and I'd rather drop in harness."

"If  I had been the boy you sent for," said Anne wistfully, "I'd be able to help you so much now and spare you in a hundred ways. I could find it
in my heart to wish I had been, just for that."

"Well  now, I'd rather have you than a dozen boys, Anne," said Matthew patting her hand. "Just mind you that--rather than a dozen boys. Well now,
I guess it wasn't a boy that took the Avery scholarship, was it? It was a girl--my girl--my girl that I'm proud of."

He  smiled  his shy smile at her as he went into the yard. Anne took the memory of it with her when she went to her room that night and sat for a
long  while  at  her open window, thinking of the past and dreaming of the future. Outside the Snow Queen was mistily white in the moonshine; the
frogs were singing in the marsh beyond Orchard Slope. Anne always remembered the silvery, peaceful beauty and fragrant calm of that night. It was
the last night before sorrow touched her life; and no life is ever quite the same again when once that cold, sanctifying touch has been laid upon
it.




CHAPTER XXXVII. The Reaper Whose Name Is Death


"Matthew--Matthew--what is the matter? Matthew, are you sick?"

It  was  Marilla  who  spoke,  alarm in every jerky word. Anne came through the hall, her hands full of white narcissus,--it was long before Anne
could  love  the sight or odor of white narcissus again,--in time to hear her and to see Matthew standing in the porch doorway, a folded paper in
his  hand,  and  his  face strangely drawn and gray. Anne dropped her flowers and sprang across the kitchen to him at the same moment as Marilla.
They were both too late; before they could reach him Matthew had fallen across the threshold.

"He's fainted," gasped Marilla. "Anne, run for Martin--quick, quick! He's at the barn."

Martin, the hired man, who had just driven home from the post office, started at once for the doctor, calling at Orchard Slope on his way to send
Mr.  and Mrs. Barry over. Mrs. Lynde, who was there on an errand, came too. They found Anne and Marilla distractedly trying to restore Matthew to
consciousness.

Mrs. Lynde pushed them gently aside, tried his pulse, and then laid her ear over his heart. She looked at their anxious faces sorrowfully and the
tears came into her eyes.

"Oh, Marilla," she said gravely. "I don't think--we can do anything for him."

"Mrs. Lynde, you don't think--you can't think Matthew is--is--" Anne could not say the dreadful word; she turned sick and pallid.

"Child, yes, I'm afraid of it. Look at his face. When you've seen that look as often as I have you'll know what it means."

Anne looked at the still face and there beheld the seal of the Great Presence.

When  the  doctor came he said that death had been instantaneous and probably painless, caused in all likelihood by some sudden shock. The secret
of  the  shock  was  discovered  to  be  in the paper Matthew had held and which Martin had brought from the office that morning. It contained an
account of the failure of the Abbey Bank.

The news spread quickly through Avonlea, and all day friends and neighbors thronged Green Gables and came and went on errands of kindness for the
dead  and living. For the first time shy, quiet Matthew Cuthbert was a person of central importance; the white majesty of death had fallen on him
and set him apart as one crowned.

When  the  calm night came softly down over Green Gables the old house was hushed and tranquil. In the parlor lay Matthew Cuthbert in his coffin,
his  long  gray  hair  framing  his placid face on which there was a little kindly smile as if he but slept, dreaming pleasant dreams. There were
flowers  about him--sweet old-fashioned flowers which his mother had planted in the homestead garden in her bridal days and for which Matthew had
always  had  a  secret, wordless love. Anne had gathered them and brought them to him, her anguished, tearless eyes burning in her white face. It
was the last thing she could do for him.

The Barrys and Mrs. Lynde stayed with them that night. Diana, going to the east gable, where Anne was standing at her window, said gently:

"Anne dear, would you like to have me sleep with you tonight?"

"Thank  you,  Diana."  Anne  looked  earnestly into her friend's face. "I think you won't misunderstand me when I say I want to be alone. I'm not
afraid.  I  haven't been alone one minute since it happened--and I want to be. I want to be quite silent and quiet and try to realize it. I can't
realize it. Half the time it seems to me that Matthew can't be dead; and the other half it seems as if he must have been dead for a long time and
I've had this horrible dull ache ever since."

Diana  did  not  quite understand. Marilla's impassioned grief, breaking all the bounds of natural reserve and lifelong habit in its stormy rush,
she could comprehend better than Anne's tearless agony. But she went away kindly, leaving Anne alone to keep her first vigil with sorrow.

Anne  hoped  that  the  tears  would come in solitude. It seemed to her a terrible thing that she could not shed a tear for Matthew, whom she had
loved  so  much  and  who had been so kind to her, Matthew who had walked with her last evening at sunset and was now lying in the dim room below
with  that  awful  peace on his brow. But no tears came at first, even when she knelt by her window in the darkness and prayed, looking up to the
stars  beyond  the hills--no tears, only the same horrible dull ache of misery that kept on aching until she fell asleep, worn out with the day's
pain and excitement.

In  the  night  she awakened, with the stillness and the darkness about her, and the recollection of the day came over her like a wave of sorrow.
She could see Matthew's face smiling at her as he had smiled when they parted at the gate that last evening--she could hear his voice saying, "My
girl--my girl that I'm proud of." Then the tears came and Anne wept her heart out. Marilla heard her and crept in to comfort her.

"There--there--don't cry so, dearie. It can't bring him back. It--it--isn't right to cry so. I knew that today, but I couldn't help it then. He'd
always been such a good, kind brother to me--but God knows best."

"Oh,  just let me cry, Marilla," sobbed Anne. "The tears don't hurt me like that ache did. Stay here for a little while with me and keep your arm
round me--so. I couldn't have Diana stay, she's good and kind and sweet--but it's not her sorrow--she's outside of it and she couldn't come close
enough to my heart to help me. It's our sorrow--yours and mine. Oh, Marilla, what will we do without him?"

"We've  got  each  other,  Anne. I don't know what I'd do if you weren't here--if you'd never come. Oh, Anne, I know I've been kind of strict and
harsh with you maybe--but you mustn't think I didn't love you as well as Matthew did, for all that. I want to tell you now when I can. It's never
been  easy for me to say things out of my heart, but at times like this it's easier. I love you as dear as if you were my own flesh and blood and
you've been my joy and comfort ever since you came to Green Gables."

Two  days  afterwards  they  carried Matthew Cuthbert over his homestead threshold and away from the fields he had tilled and the orchards he had
loved  and the trees he had planted; and then Avonlea settled back to its usual placidity and even at Green Gables affairs slipped into their old
groove  and work was done and duties fulfilled with regularity as before, although always with the aching sense of "loss in all familiar things."
Anne,  new  to  grief,  thought  it almost sad that it could be so--that they COULD go on in the old way without Matthew. She felt something like
shame  and  remorse when she discovered that the sunrises behind the firs and the pale pink buds opening in the garden gave her the old inrush of
gladness  when  she  saw  them--that Diana's visits were pleasant to her and that Diana's merry words and ways moved her to laughter and smiles--
that,  in brief, the beautiful world of blossom and love and friendship had lost none of its power to please her fancy and thrill her heart, that
life still called to her with many insistent voices.

"It  seems  like  disloyalty  to  Matthew,  somehow, to find pleasure in these things now that he has gone," she said wistfully to Mrs. Allan one
evening  when  they  were  together  in  the  manse  garden. "I miss him so much--all the time--and yet, Mrs. Allan, the world and life seem very
beautiful  and  interesting to me for all. Today Diana said something funny and I found myself laughing. I thought when it happened I could never
laugh again. And it somehow seems as if I oughtn't to."

"When  Matthew  was  here  he  liked to hear you laugh and he liked to know that you found pleasure in the pleasant things around you," said Mrs.
Allan gently. "He is just away now; and he likes to know it just the same. I am sure we should not shut our hearts against the healing influences
that  nature  offers  us.  But  I  can understand your feeling. I think we all experience the same thing. We resent the thought that anything can
please us when someone we love is no longer here to share the pleasure with us, and we almost feel as if we were unfaithful to our sorrow when we
find our interest in life returning to us."

"I  was  down  to  the  graveyard  to plant a rosebush on Matthew's grave this afternoon," said Anne dreamily. "I took a slip of the little white
Scotch  rosebush  his mother brought out from Scotland long ago; Matthew always liked those roses the best--they were so small and sweet on their
thorny stems. It made me feel glad that I could plant it by his grave--as if I were doing something that must please him in taking it there to be
near  him.  I hope he has roses like them in heaven. Perhaps the souls of all those little white roses that he has loved so many summers were all
there to meet him. I must go home now. Marilla is all alone and she gets lonely at twilight."

"She will be lonelier still, I fear, when you go away again to college," said Mrs. Allan.

Anne  did  not  reply;  she  said  good night and went slowly back to green Gables. Marilla was sitting on the front door-steps and Anne sat down
beside her. The door was open behind them, held back by a big pink conch shell with hints of sea sunsets in its smooth inner convolutions.

Anne  gathered  some  sprays  of  pale-yellow  honeysuckle  and  put  them in her hair. She liked the delicious hint of fragrance, as some aerial
benediction, above her every time she moved.

"Doctor  Spencer was here while you were away," Marilla said. "He says that the specialist will be in town tomorrow and he insists that I must go
in  and  have  my  eyes  examined.  I suppose I'd better go and have it over. I'll be more than thankful if the man can give me the right kind of
glasses  to  suit  my  eyes.  You won't mind staying here alone while I'm away, will you? Martin will have to drive me in and there's ironing and
baking to do."

"I  shall be all right. Diana will come over for company for me. I shall attend to the ironing and baking beautifully--you needn't fear that I'll
starch the handkerchiefs or flavor the cake with liniment."

Marilla laughed.

"What a girl you were for making mistakes in them days, Anne. You were always getting into scrapes. I did use to think you were possessed. Do you
mind the time you dyed your hair?"

"Yes,  indeed.  I  shall never forget it," smiled Anne, touching the heavy braid of hair that was wound about her shapely head. "I laugh a little
now  sometimes  when I think what a worry my hair used to be to me--but I don't laugh MUCH, because it was a very real trouble then. I did suffer
terribly  over  my  hair and my freckles. My freckles are really gone; and people are nice enough to tell me my hair is auburn now--all but Josie
Pye.  She informed me yesterday that she really thought it was redder than ever, or at least my black dress made it look redder, and she asked me
if  people  who had red hair ever got used to having it. Marilla, I've almost decided to give up trying to like Josie Pye. I've made what I would
once have called a heroic effort to like her, but Josie Pye won't BE liked."

"Josie  is  a  Pye,"  said  Marilla  sharply,  "so  she can't help being disagreeable. I suppose people of that kind serve some useful purpose in
society, but I must say I don't know what it is any more than I know the use of thistles. Is Josie going to teach?"

"No,  she  is  going back to Queen's next year. So are Moody Spurgeon and Charlie Sloane. Jane and Ruby are going to teach and they have both got
schools--Jane at Newbridge and Ruby at some place up west."

"Gilbert Blythe is going to teach too, isn't he?"

"Yes"--briefly.

"What  a nice-looking fellow he is," said Marilla absently. "I saw him in church last Sunday and he seemed so tall and manly. He looks a lot like
his father did at the same age. John Blythe was a nice boy. We used to be real good friends, he and I. People called him my beau."

Anne looked up with swift interest.

"Oh, Marilla--and what happened?--why didn't you--"

"We  had  a  quarrel.  I wouldn't forgive him when he asked me to. I meant to, after awhile--but I was sulky and angry and I wanted to punish him
first.  He never came back--the Blythes were all mighty independent. But I always felt--rather sorry. I've always kind of wished I'd forgiven him
when I had the chance."

"So you've had a bit of romance in your life, too," said Anne softly.

"Yes,  I suppose you might call it that. You wouldn't think so to look at me, would you? But you never can tell about people from their outsides.
Everybody has forgot about me and John. I'd forgotten myself. But it all came back to me when I saw Gilbert last Sunday."





CHAPTER XXXVIII. The Bend in the road


Marilla  went  to  town the next day and returned in the evening. Anne had gone over to Orchard Slope with Diana and came back to find Marilla in
the  kitchen,  sitting by the table with her head leaning on her hand. Something in her dejected attitude struck a chill to Anne's heart. She had
never seen Marilla sit limply inert like that.

"Are you very tired, Marilla?"

"Yes--no--I don't know," said Marilla wearily, looking up. "I suppose I am tired but I haven't thought about it. It's not that."

"Did you see the oculist? What did he say?" asked Anne anxiously.

"Yes,  I  saw him. He examined my eyes. He says that if I give up all reading and sewing entirely and any kind of work that strains the eyes, and
if I'm careful not to cry, and if I wear the glasses he's given me he thinks my eyes may not get any worse and my headaches will be cured. But if
I don't he says I'll certainly be stone-blind in six months. Blind! Anne, just think of it!"

For a minute Anne, after her first quick exclamation of dismay, was silent. It seemed to her that she could NOT speak. Then she said bravely, but
with a catch in her voice:

"Marilla,  DON'T  think  of  it. You know he has given you hope. If you are careful you won't lose your sight altogether; and if his glasses cure
your headaches it will be a great thing."

"I  don't  call  it much hope," said Marilla bitterly. "What am I to live for if I can't read or sew or do anything like that? I might as well be
blind--or dead. And as for crying, I can't help that when I get lonesome. But there, it's no good talking about it. If you'll get me a cup of tea
I'll  be thankful. I'm about done out. Don't say anything about this to any one for a spell yet, anyway. I can't bear that folks should come here
to question and sympathize and talk about it."

When  Marilla  had  eaten  her  lunch Anne persuaded her to go to bed. Then Anne went herself to the east gable and sat down by her window in the
darkness  alone with her tears and her heaviness of heart. How sadly things had changed since she had sat there the night after coming home! Then
she  had  been  full  of hope and joy and the future had looked rosy with promise. Anne felt as if she had lived years since then, but before she
went to bed there was a smile on her lips and peace in her heart. She had looked her duty courageously in the face and found it a friend--as duty
ever is when we meet it frankly.

One  afternoon  a few days later Marilla came slowly in from the front yard where she had been talking to a caller--a man whom Anne knew by sight
as Sadler from Carmody. Anne wondered what he could have been saying to bring that look to Marilla's face.

"What did Mr. Sadler want, Marilla?"

Marilla  sat  down by the window and looked at Anne. There were tears in her eyes in defiance of the oculist's prohibition and her voice broke as
she said:

"He heard that I was going to sell Green Gables and he wants to buy it."

"Buy it! Buy Green Gables?" Anne wondered if she had heard aright. "Oh, Marilla, you don't mean to sell Green Gables!"

"Anne, I don't know what else is to be done. I've thought it all over. If my eyes were strong I could stay here and make out to look after things
and  manage,  with  a good hired man. But as it is I can't. I may lose my sight altogether; and anyway I'll not be fit to run things. Oh, I never
thought  I'd  live  to see the day when I'd have to sell my home. But things would only go behind worse and worse all the time, till nobody would
want  to  buy  it. Every cent of our money went in that bank; and there's some notes Matthew gave last fall to pay. Mrs. Lynde advises me to sell
the  farm  and board somewhere--with her I suppose. It won't bring much--it's small and the buildings are old. But it'll be enough for me to live
on  I  reckon. I'm thankful you're provided for with that scholarship, Anne. I'm sorry you won't have a home to come to in your vacations, that's
all, but I suppose you'll manage somehow."

Marilla broke down and wept bitterly.

"You mustn't sell Green Gables," said Anne resolutely.

"Oh, Anne, I wish I didn't have to. But you can see for yourself. I can't stay here alone. I'd go crazy with trouble and loneliness. And my sight
would go--I know it would."

"You won't have to stay here alone, Marilla. I'll be with you. I'm not going to Redmond."

"Not going to Redmond!" Marilla lifted her worn face from her hands and looked at Anne. "Why, what do you mean?"

"Just  what  I  say.  I'm not going to take the scholarship. I decided so the night after you came home from town. You surely don't think I could
leave  you  alone  in  your  trouble, Marilla, after all you've done for me. I've been thinking and planning. Let me tell you my plans. Mr. Barry
wants  to  rent  the  farm for next year. So you won't have any bother over that. And I'm going to teach. I've applied for the school here--but I
don't  expect to get it for I understand the trustees have promised it to Gilbert Blythe. But I can have the Carmody school--Mr. Blair told me so
last  night  at  the  store.  Of  course that won't be quite as nice or convenient as if I had the Avonlea school. But I can board home and drive
myself  over  to  Carmody  and back, in the warm weather at least. And even in winter I can come home Fridays. We'll keep a horse for that. Oh, I
have it all planned out, Marilla. And I'll read to you and keep you cheered up. You sha'n't be dull or lonesome. And we'll be real cozy and happy
here together, you and I."

Marilla had listened like a woman in a dream.

"Oh, Anne, I could get on real well if you were here, I know. But I can't let you sacrifice yourself so for me. It would be terrible."

"Nonsense!" Anne laughed merrily. "There is no sacrifice. Nothing could be worse than giving up Green Gables--nothing could hurt me more. We must
keep  the  dear  old  place.  My mind is quite made up, Marilla. I'm NOT going to Redmond; and I AM going to stay here and teach. Don't you worry
about me a bit."

"But your ambitions--and--"

"I'm  just  as  ambitious  as  ever.  Only,  I've  changed the object of my ambitions. I'm going to be a good teacher--and I'm going to save your
eyesight.  Besides,  I  mean  to  study at home here and take a little college course all by myself. Oh, I've dozens of plans, Marilla. I've been
thinking  them out for a week. I shall give life here my best, and I believe it will give its best to me in return. When I left Queen's my future
seemed  to  stretch  out  before me like a straight road. I thought I could see along it for many a milestone. Now there is a bend in it. I don't
know  what  lies  around the bend, but I'm going to believe that the best does. It has a fascination of its own, that bend, Marilla. I wonder how
the  road beyond it goes--what there is of green glory and soft, checkered light and shadows--what new landscapes--what new beauties--what curves
and hills and valleys further on."

"I don't feel as if I ought to let you give it up," said Marilla, referring to the scholarship.

"But  you  can't prevent me. I'm sixteen and a half, 'obstinate as a mule,' as Mrs. Lynde once told me," laughed Anne. "Oh, Marilla, don't you go
pitying  me. I don't like to be pitied, and there is no need for it. I'm heart glad over the very thought of staying at dear Green Gables. Nobody
could love it as you and I do--so we must keep it."

"You blessed girl!" said Marilla, yielding. "I feel as if you'd given me new life. I guess I ought to stick out and make you go to college--but I
know I can't, so I ain't going to try. I'll make it up to you though, Anne."

When it became noised abroad in Avonlea that Anne Shirley had given up the idea of going to college and intended to stay home and teach there was
a  good  deal  of  discussion over it. Most of the good folks, not knowing about Marilla's eyes, thought she was foolish. Mrs. Allan did not. She
told Anne so in approving words that brought tears of pleasure to the girl's eyes. Neither did good Mrs. Lynde. She came up one evening and found
Anne  and  Marilla  sitting at the front door in the warm, scented summer dusk. They liked to sit there when the twilight came down and the white
moths flew about in the garden and the odor of mint filled the dewy air.

Mrs. Rachel deposited her substantial person upon the stone bench by the door, behind which grew a row of tall pink and yellow hollyhocks, with a
long breath of mingled weariness and relief.

"I  declare  I'm getting glad to sit down. I've been on my feet all day, and two hundred pounds is a good bit for two feet to carry round. It's a
great  blessing  not to be fat, Marilla. I hope you appreciate it. Well, Anne, I hear you've given up your notion of going to college. I was real
glad  to hear it. You've got as much education now as a woman can be comfortable with. I don't believe in girls going to college with the men and
cramming their heads full of Latin and Greek and all that nonsense."

"But  I'm  going  to  study Latin and Greek just the same, Mrs. Lynde," said Anne laughing. "I'm going to take my Arts course right here at Green
Gables, and study everything that I would at college."

Mrs. Lynde lifted her hands in holy horror.

"Anne Shirley, you'll kill yourself."

"Not  a  bit  of  it. I shall thrive on it. Oh, I'm not going to overdo things. As 'Josiah Allen's wife,' says, I shall be 'mejum'. But I'll have
lots of spare time in the long winter evenings, and I've no vocation for fancy work. I'm going to teach over at Carmody, you know."

"I don't know it. I guess you're going to teach right here in Avonlea. The trustees have decided to give you the school."

"Mrs. Lynde!" cried Anne, springing to her feet in her surprise. "Why, I thought they had promised it to Gilbert Blythe!"

"So they did. But as soon as Gilbert heard that you had applied for it he went to them--they had a business meeting at the school last night, you
know--and  told  them  that  he  withdrew his application, and suggested that they accept yours. He said he was going to teach at White Sands. Of
course  he  knew how much you wanted to stay with Marilla, and I must say I think it was real kind and thoughtful in him, that's what. Real self-
sacrificing,  too,  for  he'll  have  his  board  to pay at White Sands, and everybody knows he's got to earn his own way through college. So the
trustees decided to take you. I was tickled to death when Thomas came home and told me."

"I don't feel that I ought to take it," murmured Anne. "I mean--I don't think I ought to let Gilbert make such a sacrifice for--for me."

"I  guess  you can't prevent him now. He's signed papers with the White Sands trustees. So it wouldn't do him any good now if you were to refuse.
Of  course you'll take the school. You'll get along all right, now that there are no Pyes going. Josie was the last of them, and a good thing she
was, that's what. There's been some Pye or other going to Avonlea school for the last twenty years, and I guess their mission in life was to keep
school teachers reminded that earth isn't their home. Bless my heart! What does all that winking and blinking at the Barry gable mean?"

"Diana is signaling for me to go over," laughed Anne. "You know we keep up the old custom. Excuse me while I run over and see what she wants."

Anne ran down the clover slope like a deer, and disappeared in the firry shadows of the Haunted Wood. Mrs. Lynde looked after her indulgently.

"There's a good deal of the child about her yet in some ways."

"There's a good deal more of the woman about her in others," retorted Marilla, with a momentary return of her old crispness.

But crispness was no longer Marilla's distinguishing characteristic. As Mrs. Lynde told her Thomas that night.

"Marilla Cuthbert has got MELLOW. That's what."

Anne  went  to  the little Avonlea graveyard the next evening to put fresh flowers on Matthew's grave and water the Scotch rosebush. She lingered
there  until dusk, liking the peace and calm of the little place, with its poplars whose rustle was like low, friendly speech, and its whispering
grasses growing at will among the graves. When she finally left it and walked down the long hill that sloped to the Lake of Shining Waters it was
past  sunset  and all Avonlea lay before her in a dreamlike afterlight--"a haunt of ancient peace." There was a freshness in the air as of a wind
that  had  blown  over honey-sweet fields of clover. Home lights twinkled out here and there among the homestead trees. Beyond lay the sea, misty
and  purple,  with  its  haunting,  unceasing  murmur. The west was a glory of soft mingled hues, and the pond reflected them all in still softer
shadings. The beauty of it all thrilled Anne's heart, and she gratefully opened the gates of her soul to it.

"Dear old world," she murmured, "you are very lovely, and I am glad to be alive in you."

Halfway down the hill a tall lad came whistling out of a gate before the Blythe homestead. It was Gilbert, and the whistle died on his lips as he
recognized Anne. He lifted his cap courteously, but he would have passed on in silence, if Anne had not stopped and held out her hand.

"Gilbert,"  she  said, with scarlet cheeks, "I want to thank you for giving up the school for me. It was very good of you--and I want you to know
that I appreciate it."

Gilbert took the offered hand eagerly.

"It  wasn't  particularly  good of me at all, Anne. I was pleased to be able to do you some small service. Are we going to be friends after this?
Have you really forgiven me my old fault?"

Anne laughed and tried unsuccessfully to withdraw her hand.

"I  forgave  you  that  day  by  the pond landing, although I didn't know it. What a stubborn little goose I was. I've been--I may as well make a
complete confession--I've been sorry ever since."

"We  are  going  to  be the best of friends," said Gilbert, jubilantly. "We were born to be good friends, Anne. You've thwarted destiny enough. I
know we can help each other in many ways. You are going to keep up your studies, aren't you? So am I. Come, I'm going to walk home with you."

Marilla looked curiously at Anne when the latter entered the kitchen.

"Who was that came up the lane with you, Anne?"

"Gilbert Blythe," answered Anne, vexed to find herself blushing. "I met him on Barry's hill."

"I  didn't think you and Gilbert Blythe were such good friends that you'd stand for half an hour at the gate talking to him," said Marilla with a
dry smile.

"We  haven't  been--we've  been  good  enemies.  But we have decided that it will be much more sensible to be good friends in the future. Were we
really there half an hour? It seemed just a few minutes. But, you see, we have five years' lost conversations to catch up with, Marilla."

Anne  sat  long at her window that night companioned by a glad content. The wind purred softly in the cherry boughs, and the mint breaths came up
to her. The stars twinkled over the pointed firs in the hollow and Diana's light gleamed through the old gap.

Anne's  horizons  had  closed  in since the night she had sat there after coming home from Queen's; but if the path set before her feet was to be
narrow she knew that flowers of quiet happiness would bloom along it. The joy of sincere work and worthy aspiration and congenial friendship were
to be hers; nothing could rob her of her birthright of fancy or her ideal world of dreams. And there was always the bend in the road!

"'God's in his heaven, all's right with the world,'" whispered Anne softly.

THE END

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