CHAPTER 10 ANNE OF GREEN GABLES 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 the due sense of the enormity of Anne's behaviour. It's a good thing Rachel Lynn 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 behaviour was dreadful, and yet you take her part. I suppose you'll be saying next that she oughtn't 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 me of starving people into good behaviour? 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 apologise to Mrs. Linde, 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 determined woman, dreadful determined, Anne. Do it right off, I say, and have it over. Do you mean apologize to Mrs. Lynde? Yes. Apologize. That's the very word, said Matthew eagerly. Just smooth it over, so to speak. That's what I was trying to get at. I suppose I could do it to oblige you, said Anne thoughtfully. It would be true enough to say I'm 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 any more, and it left a dreadful sort of gone-ness, 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.  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 ore in, and I promise 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. Lindsoe. 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. Lind. What are you thinking of, Anne? She asked sharply. I'm imagining out what I must say to Mrs. Lind, 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, and had no business to look so rapt and radiant. Rapped and radiant Anne continued until they were in the very presence of Mrs. Lind, who was sitting knitting by her kitchen window. Then the radiance vanished. Nournful penitents 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. Lind, 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 behave terribly to you, and I have disgraced the dear friends, Matthew and Marilla, who have let me stay at Green Gables although I am not a boy. I am 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 am freckled and skinny and ugly. What I said to you was true, too, but I shouldn't have said it. Oh, Mrs. Lind, please, please forgive me. If you refuse, it will be a lifelong sorrow to me.  Oh, I'm sure you wouldn't. Please, say you forgive me, Mrs. Lind. 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. Lind recognized its unmistakable ring. But the former understood in dismay that Anne was actually enjoying her valley of humiliation, was reveling in the thoroughness of her 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. Lind, 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 aficious 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.  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 surprise if yours did, too. Not a mite. Oh, Mrs. Lind! 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's 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. Lind 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 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 Narcissie 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.  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, remarks skeptical Anne, sniffing at her narcissy. Oh, aren't these flowers sweet? It was lovely of Mrs. Lynn 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 a spicy perfume of young, duet 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. Everything warm and pleasant welled up in Marilla's heart at a touch of that thin little hand in her own. A throb of the maternity she had missed, perhaps. It's 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 treetops. 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. Lynn's garden and set the flowers dancing.  Oh, there's so much scope for imagination and a wind. So I'll not talk any more just now, Marilla. Thanks be to goodness for that. Breathe, Marilla, in devout relief. CHAPTER 11 Anne's Impressions of Sunday School Well, how do you like them? said Marilla. Anne was standing in the gable-room, looking solemnly at three new dresses spread out on the bed. One was of snuffy-coloured 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 bark encounter 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 fold tightly to plain wastes 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 furblows 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, wincy things you've been wearing. Oh, I am grateful, protested Anne, but I'd be ever so much grateful or 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're ridiculous looking things anyhow. I prefer the plain, sensible ones.  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. Belfour 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 disconsolently. 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.  Stay to preaching afterwards and ask Mrs. Lynde to show you our pew. Here's a scent 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 irreproachably, arrayed in the stiff black and white satine, 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 butter-cups 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, and 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.  Jerry Butte, the hired boy at Green Gables, said she talked all the time to herself for 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 Rodgerson's class. Miss Rodgerson 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 Rodgerson, 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, surely, said Marilla rebukingly. Anne sat down on the rocker with a long sigh, kissed one of Bonnie's leaves, and waved her hand to a blossoming fuchsia. They might have been lonesome while I was away, she explained. And now about the Sunday school. I behaved well just as you told me. Mrs. Lynde was gone, but I went right on myself. I went into the church with a lot of other little girls, and I sat in the corner of a pew by the window while the opening exercises went on. Mr. Bell made an awfully long prayer. I would have been dreadfully tired before he got through, if I hadn't been sitting by that window. But it looked right out on the lake of shining waters, so I just gazed at that and imagined all sorts of splendid things. You shouldn't have done anything of the sort. You should have listened to Mr. Bell. But he wasn't talking to me, protested Anne. He was talking to God, and he didn't seem to be very much interested in it either. I think he thought God was too far off, though. There was 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 it last, and they told me to go into the classroom with Miss Fraudersen'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 Fraudersen 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 splendid. There were 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 then text was Revelation's 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 SOLOM VOW AND PROMISE. It was not until next Friday that Marilla heard the story of the flower-wreathed hat. She came home from Mrs. Lin's and called Anne to account.   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.  I don't see why it's any more ridiculous to wear flowers on your hat than on your dress, protested Anne.  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.  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 until 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 butter-cups 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.  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-tow 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? He 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 butter-cups around 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.  They went over to Orchard Slope by the shortcut across the brook and up the furry hill-grove. Mrs. Barry came to the kitchen door and answered 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 hand and said kindly, How are you? I am well in body, although considerably 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 collars 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 pouring 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 furs 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 furs 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 narcissus-y and thorny sweet scotch roses, pink and blue and white columbines and lilac-tinted bouncing bets, clumps of southern wood 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.  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 have no sisters big enough.' "'Will you swear to be my friend for ever 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, four and aft.  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 goodwill to-night. Diana and I are going to build a playhouse in Mr. William Bell's birch-grove to-morrow. Can I have those broken pieces of china that are out in the woodshed?' Diana's birthday's 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 wished I had soulful eyes. Diana is going to teach me to sing a song called Nelly in the Hazeldale. 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 like chocolate sweeties, so I got you some, he said. Hmph! sniffed Marilla. It'll ruin her teeth and stomach. They're 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 wholesome-er. Don't sicken yourself eating all of 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 am 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.  That's bad enough in a woman, but it isn't to be endured in a man. I'm perfectly willing to wone 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 ANTIPATION 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 and 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 Field, right near the lake of shining waters, and Mrs. Superintendent Bell and Mrs. Rachel Lind 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 in 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 Idle Wild 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.  But—but—faulted, 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 pray any longer. I'll bake you a basket. Oh, you dear good Marilla! Oh, you're so kind to me!  Getting through with her o's, 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 it 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 feather-brained, 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.  I do not like patchwork, said Anne, dullfully, hunting out her work-basket 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 Gable 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.  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 Idol Wild. 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've 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're a whole. There is 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.  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's 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 am 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 may't get the things themselves, but nothing can prevent you from having the fun of looking forward to them. Mrs. Lynn says, Blessed are they who they 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 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 Nellie 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. Yes—admitted Anne. I took it up and 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. Luckily I didn't mean to meddle, Marilla. I didn't think about it's 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.  I did put it back, said Anne quickly, pertly Marilla thought. I just don't 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.  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 taking 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 to-night. And the brooch is gone. There's nothing sureer. 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.  Slinus 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?  Marilla felt deserted by everyone. She could not even go to Mrs. Lind 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 to-morrow, 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.  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.  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 that 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 made 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 purpley sparkling and sank forevermore beneath the Lake of Shining Waters. And that's the best I can do with confessing to 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.  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 stonely. 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.  For Lance's sake! gasped Marilla, hastening from the room. I believe the child is crazy. No child in her senses would behave as she does. Oh, if she isn't 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-shells 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 some day 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 wait 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 for 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.  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.  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 Butte, 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 rid-marole you told me this morning meant. Why, you said you'd keep me here until I confessed, returned Anne weirdly, 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.  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 wash stand. 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 the sash just in the nick of time, she'd fallen in and probably 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 OF ANNE OF GREEN GABLES This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, read by Karen Savage, Waco, Texas, June 2007. ANNE OF GREEN GABLES By Lucy Mod Montgomery 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 splendid or 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 round by the main road would have been so unromantic. But to go by lovers Lane and Willowmere and Violet Vale and the Birch Path was romantic if ever anything was. Lovers 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 Lovers 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 Lovers 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 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 Lovers 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.  Then they left the lane and walked through Mr. Barry's backfield and passed 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.  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 led 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 fringe in all its length with slim young birches, white stemmed and listen-bowed. Ferns and star flowers and wild lilies of the valley and scarlet tufts of pigeonberries grew thickly along it. And there was always a delightful spiciness in the air and music of bird calls and the murmur and laugh of woodwinds 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 schoolchildren. 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, though. He's all the time curling his mustache and making eyes at Prissy Andrews. Prissy has grown up, you know. She's sixteen, and she's studying for the entrance examination into Queen's Academy at Charlottetown next year. Tilly Bolter 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 beat 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 were 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 as such an imagination as I have, and I soon found that out. We had reading and geography and Canadian history and dictation today. Mr.  I felt so mortified, Marilla. He might have been polite or to a stranger, I think. Ruby Gillis gave me an apple, and Sophia Sloan lent me a lovely pink card with May I See You Home on it. I'm to give it back to her to-morrow. And Tilly Bolter let me wear her bead ring all the afternoon. Can I have some of those pearl beads off the old pink cushion in the garret to make myself a ring? And oh, Marilla, Jane Andrews told me that Minnie McPherson told her that she heard Prissy Andrews tell Sarah Gillis that I had a very pretty nose.  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 remarkably 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 awfully handsome, Anne, and he teases the girl 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 it his name that's written up on the porch wall with Julia Bells and a big take-notice over them? Yes, said Diana, tossing her head, but I'm sure he doesn't like Julia Bells 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 the boys. 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?   That's better than being good-looking. No, it isn't, said Anne, feminine to the core. I'd rather be pretty than clever.  I can't bear a boy with goggle eyes. If anyone wrote my name up with his, I'd never get over it, Diana Berry. 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 Gilbert 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 Pie 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 beat and spelled it wrong after all. Those Pie girls are cheats all round, said Diana indignantly as they climbed the fence of the main road. Gertie Pie 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' 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 the aisle. Gilbert Blythe was trying to make Anne surely 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's 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.  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.  You mean hateful boy, she exclaimed passionately.  And then, THWACK! Anne had brought her slate down on Gilbert's head and cracked it, slate not head, clear across. Avonlea's 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 Sloan let his team of crickets escape him altogether while he stared open mouthed at the tableau. Mr. Phillips docked 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.  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. Anne Shirley has a very bad temper. Anne 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.  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 contritelly. 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.  He laughs at mine because it is so black. He's called me a crow a dozen times, and I never heard him apologize for anything before either. There is 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 and Mr. Bell's spruce grove over the hill and across his big pasture field. From there they could keep an eye on Ebon Wright's house where the master boarded. When they saw Mr. Phillips emerging therefrom they ran for the school house, 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 school house 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 wondering 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 school-house among them just as Mr. Phillips was in the act of hanging up his hand. Mr. Phillips' 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 rakeish and dishevelled appearance. Anne, surely, since you seem to be so fond of the boy's company, we shall indulge your taste for it this afternoon, he said sarcastically. Take those flowers out of your hair and sit with Gilbert Glythe. 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 hotly, stepped across the aisle, sat down beside Gilbert Glythe, 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 actually never seen anything like it. It was so white with awful little red spots in it. To Anne this was 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 Glythe 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 sieved with shame and anger and humiliation. At first the others looked and whispered in 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, grounded to powder beneath her heel, and resumed her position without dating 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.  I know he will, because she is sitting alone. Do come back, Anne. I 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.  Just think of all the fun you will miss, mourn, Diana. We are going to build the loveliest new house dime 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, Dime by the Brook. And you know you're 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 and hold my tongue all the time if it is possible at all. But I'll 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 resolved 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 have 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 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.  Mrs. Rachel nodded. About Anne's fuss in school, I reckon, she said. Tilly Bolter was in on her way home from school and told me about it. I don't know what to do with her, said Marilla.  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 amably, 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. Tilly Bolter 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 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 fussed 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 Queens. 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 to a round 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 twilight. 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 wit thought by his evident desire to appease her. Even Diana's efforts as a peacemaker were of no avail.  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. What ever'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 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. 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 peel 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 and 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 aftermath. Anne reveled in the world of colour 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 without of door 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 veil, 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 a while 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 story, Marilla. I forgot the end of it, so I made up an infer 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 adorapated 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-up-ish. 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 used that except for the minister or the aides. 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 is 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 cookie to eat with it along in the afternoon, for I dare say Matthew will be late coming into tea since he's hauling potatoes to the vessel. Anne flew down to the hollow past the dryards 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 time she was want to run into the kitchen without knocking, but now she knocked primely at the front door, and when Anne, dressed in her second-best, as primely 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. Berry 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 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 there left on the tree. Marilla is a very generous woman. She said we could have fruitcake 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 a bright red colour. I love bright red drinks, don't you? They taste twice as good as any other colour.' The orchard, with its great sweeping boughs that bent to the ground with fruit, proved so delightful that the little girl 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 Pie, 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, trues you live, with a magic pebble that old Mary Jo 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 Sloan's name was written up with M. White's on the porch wall, and M. White was awful mad about it. Sam Bolter 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 Maddie Andrews had a new red hood and a blue crossover with tassels on it, and the air 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 bow, and everybody missed Anne so and wished she'd 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 a way 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.  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 there too 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. Lins, although she brags of hers so much. It doesn't taste a bit like hers. I should think Marilla's raspberry cordial would probably be nicer than Mrs. Lins, 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 is so little scope for imagination in cookery. You just have to go buy 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.   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 and 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 that pudding-sauce again, and Marilla sent me out to pick apples. Well, Mr. and Mrs. Chester Ross from Spencer Vale came here that morning. You know they're very stylish people, especially Mrs. Chester Ross. When Marilla called me in, dinner was already 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 lived to be a hundred. Mrs. Chester Ross just looked at me, and I thought I would sing through the floor with mortification.  Marilla turned red as fire, but she never said a word. Then she just carried that sauce in pudding-sauce and brought in some strawberry preserves. She even offered me some, but I couldn't swallow a mouthful.  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—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 determinately. 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—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 berry-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, crewied Marilla in doubt and dismay. I do hope you haven't gone and been saucy to Mrs. Lynde again. No answer from Anne saved more tears than stormy or sobs. Anne, surely, 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. Berry today, and Mrs. Berry was in an awful state, she wailed.  Oh, Marilla, I'm just overcome with woe! Marilla stared in blank amazement. Said Diana drunk, she said when she found her voice. Anne, are you or Mrs. Berry 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' husband, but I didn't mean to set her drunk. Drunk fiddle-sticks, said Marilla, marching to the sitting-room pantry. There on the shelf was a bottle which she had once recognized as one containing some of her three-year-old homemade current wine for which she was celebrated in Avonlea, although certain of the stricter sort, Mrs. Berry 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 current 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.  She just laughed, silly-like, when her mother asked 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. Berry is so indignant. She will never believe at what I did it on purpose. I should think she would better punish Diana for being so greedy as to drink three glassples 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 current 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. Berry 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's 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. Berry won't forgive me. Mrs. Berry, 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 current wine and how I'd always said it couldn't have the least effect on anybody. I just told her plainly that current wine wasn't meant to be drunk three tumbler falls 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 bare-headed into the chill autumn dusk. Very determinately and steadily she took her way down through the seer 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. Berry, coming to the door in answer to a timid knock, found a white-lipped, eager-eyed supplicant on the doorstep. Her face hardened. Mrs. Berry 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 prepence, 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. Berry, 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. Lin's heart in a twinkling, had no effect on Mrs. Berry except to irritate her still more. She was suspicious of Anne's big words and traumatic 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. Berry, 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. Berry 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. Berry. 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.  Then she bent down and kissed the flushed cheek on the pillow. CHAPTER 17 A NEW INTEREST IN LIFE The next afternoon, Anne, bending over her patchwork at the kitchen window, happened to glance out and beheld Diana, down by the dried'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.   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.  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. Diana staunchly, and I always will. You may be sure of that. And I will always love thee, Diana, said Anne, solemnly extending her hand.  Diana, wilt thou give me a lock of thy jet-black tresses in parting to treasure for evermore?  Query 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. Fairly 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 ladder 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's all over, she informed Marilla. I shall never have another friend.  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.  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. Berry 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 you'll hear no more of breaking slates over people's heads and such carrying's 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 Mini Andrews was a model pupil, and there isn't a spark of imagination or life in her. She is just dull and pokey, 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, and 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 Mae McPherson 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 Sloan offered to teach her a perfectly elegant new pattern of knit lace, so nice for trimming aprons. Katie Bolter 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 Mini 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 blithe 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 Sloan's slate-pencil, gorgeously bedisoned with striped red and yellow paper, costing two cents where ordinary pencils cost only one, which he sent up to her after dinner-hour, meant with a more favourable reception. Anne was graciously pleased to accept it, and rewarded the donor with a smile which exalted that infatuated youth straightaway into the seventh heaven of delight, and caused him to make such fearful errors in his dictation that Mr. Phillips kept him 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 Pie, 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 Pie one bit. I made you one of the new bookmarkers out of red tissue paper. They're 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.  Our spirits can commune. I shall keep your lovely present for ever. Minnie Andrews is a very nice little girl, although she has no imagination. But after having been Diana's bosom friend, I cannot be Minnie's. Please excuse mistakes because my spelling isn't very good yet, although much improved. Yours until death do us 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. Miss 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 study's 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 braid, 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 hardly 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 well, I mean, some of the others are so smart at it, it's 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? End of Chapter 17