Chapter 1 of Anne of Green Gables.
Anne of Green Gables by L. M. 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 over-brimming
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 June bells 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 on 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 a 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 saw 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 a 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; her 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 about 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 a-star 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 far 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 one-sided, 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.
Between times 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 sun rising,” 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 pupils 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.
