or it, and imagining what the flowers and buds would think when the drops began to fall. I imagined out a most interesting dialogue between the asters and the sweet peas and the wild canaries and the lilac bush, and the guardian spirit as a garden. When I go home I mean to write it down. I wish I had a pencil and paper to do it now, because I dare say I'll forget the best parts before I reach home. Diana the faithful had a pencil, and discovered a sheet of wrapping paper in the box of the buggy. Anne folded up her dripping parasol, put on her hat, spread the wrapping paper on a shingle Diana handed up, and wrote out her garden idol under conditions that could hardly be considered as favourable to literature. Nevertheless, the result was quite pretty, and Diana was enraptured when Anne read it to her. Oh, Anne, it's sweet, just sweet. Do send it to the Canadian woman. Anne shook her head. Oh, no, it wouldn't be suitable at all. There's no plot in it, you see. It's just a string of fancies. I like writing such things, but of course nothing of the sort would ever do for publication, for editors insist on plots, so Priscilla says. Oh, there's Miss Saracop now. Please, Diana, go and explain. Miss Saracop was a small person, garbed in shabby black, with a hat chosen less for vain adornment than for qualities that would wear well. She looked as amazed as might be expected on seeing the curious Tableau in her yard, but when she heard Diana's explanation she was all sympathy. She hurriedly unlocked the back door, produced the axe, and with a few skillful blows set Anne free. The latter, somewhat tired and stiff, ducked down into the interior of her prison and thankfully emerged into liberty once more. Miss Cop, she said earnestly, I assure you I looked into your pantry window only to discover if you had a willow-wear platter. I didn't see anything else. I didn't look for anything else. Bless you, that's all right, said Miss Sarah amably. You needn't worry, there's no harm done. Thank goodness we cops keep our pantries presentable at all times and don't care who sees into them. As for that old duck house, I'm glad it's smashed, for maybe now Martha will agree to having it taken down. She never would before for fear it might come in handy some time, and I've had to whitewash it every spring. But you might as well argue with a post as with Martha. She went to town to-day, I drove her to the station. And do you want to buy my platter? Well, what will you give for it? Twenty dollars, said Anne, who was never meant to match business wits with a cop, or she would not have offered her price at the start. Well, I'll see, said Miss Sarah cautiously. That platter is mine, fortunately, or I'd never dare to sell it when Martha wasn't here. As it is, I dare say she'll raise a fuss. Martha's the boss of this establishment, I can tell you. I'm getting awful tired of living under another woman's thumb. But come in, come in. You must be real tired and hungry. I'll do the best I can for you in the way of tea, but I warn you not to expect anything but bread and butter and some cow-cumbers. Martha locked up all the cake and cheese and preserves before she went. She always does, because she says I'm too extravagant with them if company comes. The girls were hungry enough to do justice to any fair, and they enjoyed Miss Sarah's excellent bread and butter and cow-cumbers thoroughly. When the meal was over, Miss Sarah said, I don't know as I mine selling the platter, but it's worth twenty-five dollars. It's a very old platter. Diana gave Anne's foot a gentle kick under the table, meaning don't agree. She'll let it go for twenty if you hold out. But Anne was not minded to take any chances in regard to that precious platter. She promptly agreed to give twenty-five, and Miss Sarah looked as if she felt sorry she hadn't asked for thirty. Well, I guess you may have it. I want all the money I can scare up just now.  I'm going to be married, to Luther Wallace. He wanted me twenty years ago.  I suppose I shouldn't have let him go so neat, but I was timid and frightened of father. Besides, I didn't know men were so skirse. When the girls were safely away, Diana driving and Anne holding the coveted platter carefully on her lap, the green, rain-fresh and solitudes of the Tory Road were enlivened by ripples of girlish laughter. I'll amuse your Aunt Josephine with the strange, eventful history of this afternoon when I go to town to-morrow. We've had a rather trying time, but it's over now. I've got the platter, and that rain has laid the dust beautifully, so all's well that ends well. We're not home yet," said Diana rather pessimistically, and there's no telling what may happen before we are. You're such a girl to have adventures, Anne. Having adventures comes natural to some people, said Anne serenely. You just have a gift for them, or you haven't. CHAPTER XIX of Anne of Avonlea by Lucy Mod Montgomery, read for LibriVox.org by Karen Savage in February 2008. CHAPTER XIX After all, Anne had said to Marilla once, I believe the nicest and sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens, but just those that bring simple little pleasures following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a string. Life at Green Gables was full of just such days, for Anne's adventures and misadventures, like those of other people, did not all happen at once, but were sprinkled over the year with long stretches of harmless, happy days between, filled with work and dreams and laughter and lessons. Such a day came late in August. In the forenoon Anne and Diana rode the delighted twins down the pond at the sand-tor to pick sweetgrass and paddle in the surf over which the wind was harping an old lyric learned when the world was young. In the afternoon Anne walked down to the old Irving place to see Paul. She found him stretched out on the grassy bank beside the thick fur-grove that sheltered the house on the north, absorbed in a book of fairytales. He sprang up radiantly at the sight of her.  Because grandma's away. You'll stay and have tea with me, won't you? It's so lonesome to have tea all by oneself, you know, teacher. I've had serious thoughts of asking young Mary Jo to sit down and eat her tea with me, but I expect grandma wouldn't approve. She says the French have to be kept in their place, and anyhow it's difficult to talk with young Mary Jo.  That isn't my idea of conversation. Of course I'll stay to tea, said Anne Gailey. I was dying to be asked. My mouth has been watering for some more of your grandma's delicious shortbread ever since I had tea here before. Paul looked very sober.  But it depends on Mary Jo. I heard grandma tell her before she left that she wasn't to give me any shortcake because it was too rich for little boys' stomachs.  Let us hope for the best. Yes, let us, agreed Anne, whom this cheerful philosophy suited exactly. And if Mary Jo proves hard-hearted and won't give me any shortbread, it doesn't matter in the least, so you are not to worry over that. You're sure you won't mind if she doesn't? said Paul anxiously. Perfectly sure, dear heart. Then I won't worry, said Paul, with a long breath of relief, especially as I really think Mary Jo will listen to reason. She is not a naturally unreasonable person, but she has learned by experience that it doesn't do to disobey grandma's orders. Grandma is an excellent woman, but people must do what she tells them. She was very much pleased with me this morning because I managed at last to eat all my plateful of porridge. It was a great effort, but I succeeded. Grandma says she thinks she'll make a man of me yet. But teacher, I want to ask you a very important question. You will answer it truthfully, won't you? I'll try, promised Anne. Do you think I'm wrong in my upper story? asked Paul as if his very existence depended on her reply. Goodness, no, Paul! exclaimed Anne in amazement. Certainly you're not. What put such an idea into your head? Mary Jo. But she didn't know I heard her. Mrs. Peter Sloan's hired girl Veronica came to see Mary Jo last evening, and I heard them talking in the kitchen as I was going through the hall.  He talks that queer. I think there's something wrong in his upper story. I couldn't sleep last night for ever so long, thinking of it, and wondering if Mary Jo was right. I couldn't bear to ask Grandma about it somehow, but I made up my mind I'd ask you. I'm so glad you think I'm all right in my upper story. Of course you are.  Well, that's a weight off my mind, said Paul. I'm perfectly happy now, teacher, thanks to you. It wouldn't be nice to have something wrong in your upper story, would it, teacher? I suppose the reason Mary Jo imagines I have is because I tell her what I think about things sometimes. It is a rather dangerous practice, admitted Anne, out of the depths of her own experience. Well, by and by I'll tell you the thoughts I told Mary Jo, and you can see for yourself if there's anything queer in them, said Paul. But I'll wait till it begins to get dark. That is the time I AIT to tell people things, and when nobody else is handy I just have to tell Mary Jo. But after this I won't, if it makes her imagine I'm wrong in my upper story. I'll just AIT and bear it.  Yes, I will. But I hope Davy won't be there when I go, because he makes faces at me.  But still, it is not pleasant to have faces made at you. And Davy makes such terrible ones. Sometimes I am frightened he will never get his face straightened out again. He makes them at me in church when I ought to be thinking of sacred things.  I may marry somebody when I grow up, but I am far too young to be thinking of it yet, don't you think, teacher? Rather young, a great teacher. Speaking of marrying reminds me of another thing that has been troubling me of late, continued Paul. Mrs. Lind was down here one day last week having tea with Grandma, and Grandma made me show her my little mother's picture, the one father sent me for my birthday present. I didn't exactly want to show it to Mrs. Lind. Mrs. Lind is a good, kind woman, but she isn't the sort of person you want to show your mother's picture to, you know, teacher. But of course I obeyed Grandma. Mrs. Lind said she was very pretty, but kind of actressy-looking, and must have been an awful lot younger than father. Then she said, some of these days your pa will be marrying again likely. How will you like to have a new ma, Master Paul? While the idea almost took my breath away, teacher, but I wasn't going to let Mrs. Lind see that. I just looked her straight in the face, like this. And I said, Mrs. Lind, father made a pretty good job of picking out my first mother, and I could trust him to pick out just as good a one the second time. And I can trust him, teacher. But still, I hope, if he ever does give me a new mother, he'll ask my opinion about her before it's too late. There's Mary Jo coming to call us to tea. I'll go and consult with her about the shortbread. As a result of the consultation, Mary Jo cut the shortbread and added a dish of preserves to the bill of fare. Anne poured the tea, and she and Paul had a very merry meal in the dim old sitting-room whose windows were open to the gulf breezes, and they talked so much nonsense that Mary Jo was quite scandalised, and told Veronica the next evening that Descoulmes was as queer as Paul. After tea, Paul took Anne up to his room to show her his mother's picture, which had been the mysterious birthday present kept by Mrs. Irving in the bookcase. Paul's little low-ceiling-droom was a soft whirl of ruddy light from the sun that was setting over the sea, and swinging shadows from the fir trees that grew close to the square, deep-set window.  "'That's my little mother,' said Paul, with loving pride. "'I got Grandma to hang it there where I'd see it as soon as I opened my eyes in the morning. I never mind not having the light when I go to bed now, because it just seems as if my little mother was right here with me. Father knew just what I would like for a birthday present, although he never asked me. Isn't it wonderful how much fathers do know?'  "'My eyes are the same colour as father's,' said Paul, flying about the room to heap all available cushions on the window-seed. But father's hair is grey. He has lots of it, but it is grey. You see, father is nearly fifty. That's a ripe old age, isn't it? But it's only outside he's old. Inside he's just as young as anybody.  May I lay my head against your knee? That's the way my little mother and I used to sit. Oh, this is real splendid, I think. Now, I want to hear those thoughts which Mary Jo pronounces so queer,' said Anne, patting the mop of curls at her side. Paul never needed any coaxing to tell his thoughts, at least to congenial souls. I thought them out in the fur-grove one night, he said dreamily. Of course I didn't believe them, but I thought them. You know, teacher. And then I wanted to tell them to somebody, and there was nobody but Mary Jo. Mary Jo was in the pantry setting bread, and I sat down on the bench beside her and I said, Mary Jo, do you know what I think? I think the evening star is a lighthouse on the land where the fairies dwell.  There ain't no such thing as fairies. I was very much provoked. Of course I knew there are no fairies, but that needn't prevent my thinking there is. You know, teacher. But I tried again quite patiently. I said, Well, then, Mary Jo, do you know what I think? I think an angel walks over the world after the sun sets. A great, tall, white angel with silvery folded wings and sings the flowers and birds to sleep. Children can hear them if they know how to listen.  Use makes me feel scared. And she really did look scared. I went out then and whispered the rest of my thoughts to the garden. There was a little birch tree in the garden and it died. Grandma says the salt spray killed it, but I think the dryad belonging to it was a foolish dryad who wandered away to see the world and got lost, and the little tree was so lonely it died of a broken heart. And when the poor, foolish little dryad gets tired of the world and comes back to her tree, her heart will break, said Anne. Yes. But if dryads are foolish, they must take the consequences, just as if they were real people, said Paul Gravely. Do you know what I think about the new moon teacher? I think it is a little golden boat full of dreams. And when it tips on a cloud, some of them spill out and fall into your sleep. Exactly, teacher! Oh, you do know! And I think the violets are little snips of the sky that fell down when the angels cut out holes for the stars to shine through, and the butter cups are made out of old sunshine. And I think the sweet peas will be butterflies when they go to heaven. Now, teacher, do you see anything so very queer about those thoughts? No, laddie dear. They're not queer at all. They're strange and beautiful thoughts for a little boy to think, and so people who couldn't think anything of the sort themselves if they tried for a hundred years think them queer. But keep on thinking them, Paul. Someday you are going to be a poet, I believe. When Anne reached home she found a very different type of boyhood waiting to be put to bed. Davey was sulky, and when Anne had undressed him he bounced into bed and buried his face in the pillow. Davey, you have forgotten to say your prayers, said Anne rebukingly. No, I didn't forget, said Davey defiantly, but I ain't going to say my prayers any more. I'm going to give up trying to be good, because no matter how good I am you'd like Paul Irving better, so I might as well be bad and have the fun of it. I don't like Paul Irving better, said Anne seriously. I like you just as well, only in a different way. But I don't want you to like me the same way, pouted Davey. You can't like different people the same way. You don't like Dora in me the same way, do you? Davey set up and reflected. No, he admitted at last.  And I like Paul because he is Paul and Davey because he is Davey, said Anne gaily. Well, I kind of wish I'd said my prayers then, said Davey, convinced by this logic, but it's too much bother getting out now to say them. I'll say them twice over in the morning, Anne. Won't that do as well? No, Anne was positive it would not do as well. So Davey scrambled out and knelt down at her knee. When he had finished his devotions he leaned back on his little bare brown heels and looked up at her. Anne, I'm gooder than I used to be. Yes, indeed you are, Davey, said Anne, who never hesitated to give credit where credit was due. I know I'm gooder, said Davey confidently, and I'll tell you how I know it. Today Marilla gave me two pieces of bread and jam, one for me and one for Dora, one was a good deal bigger than the other, and Marilla didn't say which was mine, but I'd give the biggest piece to Dora. That was good of me, wasn't it? Very good and very manly, Davey. Of course, admitted Davey, Dora wasn't very hungry and she only had half her slice, and then she'd give the rest to me. But I didn't know she was going to do that when I'd give it to her, so I was good at hand. In the twilight Anne sauntered down to the dry-heads bubble and saw Gilbert Glythe coming down through the dusky, haunted wood. She had a sudden realization that Gilbert was a schoolboy no longer, and how manly he looked, the tall, frank-faced fellow with the clear, straightforward eyes and the broad shoulders. Anne thought Gilbert was a very handsome lad, even though he didn't look at all like her ideal man. She and Diana had long ago decided what kind of a man they admired, and their taste seemed exactly similar. He must be very tall and distinguished-looking, with melancholy, inscrutable eyes and a melting, sympathetic voice. There was nothing either melancholy or inscrutable in Gilbert's physiognomy, but of course that didn't matter in friendship. Gilbert stretched himself out on the ferns beside the bubble and looked approvingly at Anne. If Gilbert had been asked to describe his ideal woman, the description would have answered point for point to Anne, even to those seven tiny freckles whose obnoxious presence still continued to vex her soul. Gilbert was as yet little more than a boy, but a boy has his dreams as have others, and in Gilbert's future there was always a girl with big, limpid, gray eyes and a face as fine and delicate as a flower. He had made up his mind also that his future must be worthy of its goddess. Even in quiet Avonlea there were temptations to be met and faced. White sand's youth were rather fast-set, and Gilbert was popular wherever he went, but he meant to keep himself worthy of Anne's friendship and perhaps some distant day her love. And he watched over word and thought and deed as jealously as if her clear eyes were to pass judgment on it. She held over him the unconscious influence that every girl whose ideals are high and pure wields over her friends, an influence which would endure as long as she was faithful to those ideals and which she would have certainly lose if she were ever false to them. In Gilbert's eyes Anne's greatest charm was the fact that she never stooped to the petty practices of so many of the Avonlea girls, the small jealousies, the little deceits and rivalries, the palpable bids for favour. Anne held herself apart from all this, not consciously or of design, but simply because anything of the sort was utterly foreign to her transparent, impulsive nature, crystal clear in its motives and aspirations. But Gilbert did not attempt to put his thoughts into words, for he had already too good reason to know that Anne would mercilessly and frostily nip all attempts at sentiment in the bud, or laugh at him, which was ten times worse. You look like a real dried under that birch tree, he said teasingly. I love birch trees, said Anne, laying her cheek against the creamy satin of the slim bowl with one of the pretty caressing gestures which came so naturally to her. Then you'll be glad to hear that Mr. Major Spencer has decided to set out a row of white birches all along the road-front of his farm by way of encouraging the Davis, said Gilbert. He was talking to me about it today. Major Spencer is the most progressive and public-spirited man in Avonlea, and Mr. William Bell is going to set out a spruce hedge along his road-front and up his lane. Our society is getting unsplendably, Anne. It is past the experimental stage and is an accepted fact. The older folks are beginning to take an interest in it, and the white sands people are talking of starting one, too. Even Elisha Wright has come round since that day the Americans from the hotel had the picnic at the shore. They praised our roadside so highly and said they were so much prettier than in any other part of the island. And when, in due time, the other farmers follow Mr. Spencer's good example in plant ornamental trees and hedges along their road-fronts, Avonlea will be the prettiest settlement in the province. The aides are talking of taking up the graveyard, said Anne, and I hope they will, because there will have to be a subscription for that, and it would be no use for the society to try it after the Hall Affair. But the aides would never have stirred in the matter if the society hadn't put it into their thoughts unofficially. Those trees we planted on the church grounds are flourishing, and the trustees have promised me that they will fence in the school grounds next year. If they do, I'll have an arbor day, and every scholar shall plant a tree, and we'll have a garden in the corner by the road. We've succeeded in almost all our plans so far, except in getting the old bolter-house removed, said Gilbert, and I've given that up in despair. Leave I won't have it taken down just of excess. There's a contrary streak in all the bolters and it's strongly developed in him. Julia Bell wants to send another committee to him, but I think the better way will be just to leave him severely alone, said Anne, sagely. And trust a providence, as Mrs. Linn says, smiled Gilbert. Certainly no more committees. They only aggravate him. Julia Bell thinks you can do anything if you only have a committee to attempt it. Next spring, Anne, we must start an agitation for nice lawns and grounds. We'll sow good seed-betimes this winter. I have a treatise here on lawns and lawn-making, and I'm going to prepare a paper on the subject soon. Well, I suppose our vacation is almost over. School opens Monday. Has Ruby Gillis got the Carmody School? Yes. Priscilla wrote that she had taken her own home-school, so the Carmody trustees gave it to Ruby. I'm sorry Priscilla's not coming back, but since she can't I'm glad Ruby has got the school. She will be home for Saturdays, and it will seem like old times to have her and Jane and Diana and myself all together again. Marilla, just home for Mrs. Linn's, was sitting on the back porch step when Anne returned to the house. Rachel and I have decided to have our cruise to town to-morrow, she said. Mr. Linn is feeling better this week, and Rachel wants to go before he has another six-spell. I intend to get up extra early to-morrow morning, for I've ever so much to do, said Anne, virtuously. For one thing I'm going to shift the feathers from my old bed-tick to the new one. I ought to have done it long ago, but I've just kept putting it off. It's such a detestable task. It's a very bad habit to put off disagreeable things, and I never mean to again, or else I can't comfortably tell my pupils not to do it. That would be inconsistent. Then I want to make a cake for Mr. Harrison and finish my paper on gardens for the Avis, and write Stella, and wash and starch my muslin dress, and make Dora's new apron. You won't get half done, said Marilla pessimistically. I never yet plan to do a lot of things, but something happened to prevent me. CHAPTER XXI. The Way It Often Happens. Anne rose betimes the next morning and blithely greeted the fresh day when the banners of the sunrise were shaken triumphantly across the pearly skies. Green gables lay in a pool of sunshine, flecked with the dancing shadows of Poplar and Willow. Beyond the land was Mr. Harrison's wheat field, a great, wind-rippled expanse of pale gold. The world was so beautiful that Anne spent ten blissful minutes hanging idly over the garden gate drinking the loveliness in. After breakfast Marilla made ready for her journey. Dora was to go with her, having been long promised this treat. Now, Davy, you try to be a good boy and don't bother Anne, she straightly charged him. If you are good, I'll bring you a striped candy cane from town. For alas, Marilla had stooped to the evil habit of bribing people to be good. I won't be bad on purpose, but suppose and I'm bad accidentally, Davy wanted to know. You'll have to guard against accidents, admonished Marilla. And if Mr. Shearer comes to-day, get a nice roast and some steak.  Anne nodded. I'm not going to bother cooking any dinner for just Davy and myself to-day, she said. That cold ham-bone will do for noon lunch and I'll have some steak-fried for you when you come home at night. I'm going to help Mr. Harrison Hall Dulse this morning, announced Davy. He asked me to, and I guess he'll ask me to dinner, too. Mr. Harrison is an awful kind man. He's a real sociable man. I hope I'll be like him when I grow up. I mean, behave like him. I don't want to look like him. But I guess there's no danger, for Mrs. Lin says I'm a very handsome child. Do you suppose it'll last, Anne? I want to know. I daresay it will, said Anne gravely.  You look volumes of disapproval, but you must live up to it and be just as nice and gentlemanly as you look to be. And you told Minnie May Berry the other day when you found her crying because someone said she was ugly, that if she was nice and kind and loving people wouldn't mind her looks, said Davy discontentedly. Seems to me you can't get out of being good in this world for some reason or another. You just have to behave. Don't you want to be good? asked Marilla, who had learned a great deal that had not yet learned the futility of asking such questions. Yes, I want to be good, but not too good, said Davy cautiously. You don't have to be very good to be a Sunday school superintendent. Mr. Bell's that he's a real bad man. Indeed, he's not, said Marilla indignantly. He is. He says he is himself, a severated Davy. He said it when he prayed in Sunday school last Sunday. He said he was a vile worm and a miserable sinner and guilty of the blackest niquity. What did he do that was so bad, Marilla? Did he kill anybody? Or steal the collection sense? I want to know. Fortunately Mrs. Lynde came driving up the lane at this moment and Marilla made off, feeling that she had escaped from the snare of the Fowler, and wishing devoutly that Mr. Bell were not quite so highly figurative in its public petitions, especially in the hearing of small boys who were always wanting to know. Anne, left alone in her glory, worked with a will. The floor was swept, the beds made, the hens fed, the muslin dress washed, and hung out on the line. Then Anne prepared for the transfer of feathers. She mounted to the garret and donned the first old dress that came to hand, a navy blue cashmere she had worn at fourteen. It was decidedly on the short side, and as skimpy as the notable wincy Anne had worn upon the occasion of her debut at Green Gables. But at least it would not be materially injured by down and feathers. Anne completed her toilette by tying a big red and white spotted handkerchief that had belonged to Matthew over her bed, and thus accoutered, but took herself to the kitchen chamber with a marilla before her departure, had helped her carry the feather bed. A cracked mirror hung by the chamber window, and in an unlucky moment Anne looked into it. There were those seven freckles on her nose more rampant than ever, or so it seemed in the glare of light from the unshaded window. Oh! I forgot to rub that lotion on last night, she thought. I'd better run down to the pantry and do it now. Anne had already suffered many things trying to remove those freckles. On one occasion the entire skin had peeled off her nose, but the freckles remained. A few days previously she had found a recipe for a freckle lotion in a magazine, and as the ingredients were within her reach she straightaway compounded it, much to the disgust of marilla, who thought that if Providence had placed freckles on your nose it was your bound and duty to leave them there. Anne scurried down to the pantry, which always dimmed from the big willow growing close to the window, was now almost dark by reason of the shade drawn to exclude flies. Anne caught the little bottle containing the lotion from the shelf, and copiously anointed her nose therewith by means of a little sponge sacred to the purpose. This important duty done she returned to her work. Anyone who has ever shifted feathers from one tick to another will not need to be told that when Anne finished she was a sight to behold. Her dress was white with down and fluff, and her front hair escaping from under the handkerchief was adorned with a veritable halo of feathers. At this auspicious moment a knock sounded at the kitchen door. That must be Mr. Shearer, thought Anne. I'm in a dreadful mess, but I'll have to run down as I am, for he's always in a hurry. Down flew Anne to the kitchen door. If ever a charitable floor did open to swallow up a miserable, befeathered damsel, the Green Gable's porch floor should promptly have engulfed Anne at that moment. On the doorstep were standing Priscilla Grant, Golden and Fair in silk attire, a short, stout, gray-haired lady in a tweed suit, and another lady, tall, stately, wonderfully gowned with a beautiful, high-bred face and large, black-lashed, violet eyes, whom Anne instinctively felt, as she would have said in her earlier days, to be Mrs. Charlotte E. Morgan. In the dismay of the moment one thought stood out from the confusion of Anne's mind, and she grasped at it as at the proverbial straw. All Mrs. Morgan's heroines were noted for rising to the occasion. No matter what their troubles were they invariably rose to the occasion and showed their superiority over all ills of time, space, and quantity. And, therefore, felt it was her duty to rise to the occasion, and she did it so perfectly that Priscilla afterwards declared that she never admired Anne Shirley more than at that moment. No matter what her outraged feelings were she did not show them. She greeted Priscilla and was introduced to her companions as calmly and composedly as if she had been arrayed in purple and fine linen. To be sure it was somewhat of a shock to find that the lady she had instinctively felt to be Mrs. Morgan was not Mrs. Morgan at all, but an unknown Mrs. Pendexter, while the stout little grey-haired woman was Mrs. Morgan. But in the greater shock the lesser lost its power. Anne ushered her guests to the spare room and thence into the parlor, where she left them while she hastened out to help Priscilla unharness her horse. It's dreadful to come upon you so unexpectedly as this, apologized Priscilla, but I did not know till last night that we were coming. Anne Charlotte is going away Monday and she had promised to spend a day with a friend in town, but last night her friend telephoned to her not to come because they were quarantined for scarlet fever, so I suggested we come here instead, for I knew you were longing to see her. We called at the White Sands Hotel and brought Mrs. Pendexter with us. She is a friend of Anne's and lives in New York and her husband is a millionaire. We can't stay very long, for Mrs. Pendexter has to be back at the hotel by five o'clock. Several times while they were putting away the horse, Anne caught Priscilla looking at her in a furtive, puzzled way. She didn't stare at me so, Anne thought a little resentfully. If she doesn't know what it is to change a feather-bed, she might imagine it. When Priscilla had gone to the parlor and before Anne could escape upstairs, Diana walked into the kitchen. Anne caught her astonished friend by the arm. Diana Barry, who do you suppose is in that parlor at this very moment, Mrs. Charlotte E. Morgan, and a New York millionaire's wife, and here I am like this and not a thing in the house for dinner but a cold, ham-bone Diana. By this time Anne had become aware that Diana was staring at her in precisely the same bewildered fashion as Priscilla had done. It was really too much. Oh, Diana, don't look at me so, she implored. You at least must know that the neatest person in the world couldn't empty feathers from one tick into another and remain neat in the process. It isn't the feathers, hesitated Diana. It's your nose, Anne. My nose? Oh, Diana, surely nothing has gone wrong with it. Anne rushed to the little looking-glass over the sink. One glance revealed the fatal truth. Her nose was a brilliant scarlet. Anne sat down on the sofa. Her dauntless spirit subdued at last. What is the matter with it? asked Diana, curiosity overcoming delicacy. I thought I was rubbing my freckle lotion on it, but I must have used that red dimer will I has for marking the pattern on her rugs. Was the despairing response. What shall I do? Wash it off, said Diana practically. Perhaps it won't wash off. First I dye my hair, then I dye my nose. Marilla cut my hair off when I dyed it, but that remedy would hardly be practicable in this case. Well, this is another punishment for vanity, and I suppose I deserve it. Though there's not much comfort in that. It is really almost enough to make one believe in ill luck, though Mrs. Lynde says there is no such thing because everything is foreordained. Fortunately the dye washed off easily, and Anne somewhat consoled but took herself to the East Gable while Diana ran home. Presently Anne came down again, clothed and in her right mind. The muslin dress she had fondly hoped to wear was bobbing merrily about on the line outside, so she was forced to content herself with her black lawn.  The latter wore her muslin at least, and carried a covered platter in her hand. Mother sent you this, she said, lifting the cover and displaying a nicely carved and jointed chicken to Anne's grateful eyes. The chicken was supplemented by light new bread, excellent butter and cheese, Marilla's fruit-cake and a dish of preserved plums floating in their golden syrup as in congealed summer sunshine. There was a big bowlful of pink and white asters also by way of decoration, yet the spread seemed very meager beside the elaborate one formally prepared for Mrs. Morgan. Anne's hungry guests, however, did not seem to think anything was lacking, and they ate the simple vions with apparent enjoyment. But after the first few moments Anne thought no more of what was or was not on her bill of fare. Mrs. Morgan's appearance might be somewhat disappointing, as even her loyal worshippers had been forced to admit to each other, but she proved to be a delightful conversationalist. She had travelled extensively and was an excellent storyteller. She had seen much of men and women and crystallized her experiences into witty little sentences and epigrams which made her hearers feel as if they were listening to one of the people in clever books. But under all her sparkle there was a strongly felt undercurrent of true, womanly sympathy and kind-heartedness which one affection is easily as her brilliancy one admiration. Nor did she monopolize the conversation. She could draw others out as skillfully and fully as she could talk herself, and Anne and Diana found themselves chattering freely to her. Mrs. Pendexter said little. She merely smiled with her lovely eyes and lips, and ate chicken and fruitcake and preserves with such exquisite grace that she conveyed the impression of dining on ambrosia and honeydew. But then, as Anne said to Diana later on, anybody so divinely beautiful as Mrs. Pendexter didn't need to talk, it was enough for her just to look. After dinner they all had to walk through lover's lane and violet veil in the birch path, then back through the haunted wood to the dryad's bubble where they sat down and talked for a delightful last half-hour. Mrs. Morgan wanted to know how the haunted wood came by its name, and laughed until she cried when she heard the story, and Anne's dramatic account of a certain memorable walk through it at the witching hour of twilight. It has indeed been a feast of reason and flow of soul, hasn't it? said Anne when her guests had gone, and she and Diana were alone again. I don't know which I enjoyed more, listening to Mrs. Morgan or gazing at Mrs. Pendexter. I believe we had a nicer time than if we'd known they were coming and being combered with much serving. You must stay to tea with me, Diana, and we'll talk it all over. Priscilla says Mrs. Pendexter's husband's sister is married to an English Earl, and yet she took a second helping of the plum preserves, said Diana, as if the two facts were somehow incompatible. I daresay even the English Earl himself wouldn't have turned up his aristocratic nose at Marilla's plum preserves, said Anne proudly. Anne did not mention the misfortune which had befallen her nose when she related the day's history to Marilla that evening. But she took the bottle of freckle lotion and emptied it out of the window. I shall never try any beautifying messes again, she said, darkly resolute. They may do for careful deliberate people, but for any one so hopelessly given over to making mistakes as I seem to be, it's tempting fate to meddle with them. CHAPTER XXI. School opened, and Anne returned to her work with fewer theories but considerably more experience. She had several new pupils, six and seven-year-olds just venturing round-eyed into a world of wonder. Among them were Davy and Dora. Davy sat with Melty Bolter, who had been going to school for a year, and was therefore quite a man of the world. Dora had made a compact at Sunday school the previous Sunday to sit with Lily Sloan. But Lily Sloan not coming the first day, she was temporarily assigned to Mirabelle Cotton, who was ten years old, and therefore, in Dora's eyes, one of the big girls. I think school is great fun, Davy told Marilla when he got home that night. You said I'd find it hard to sit still, and I did. You mostly do tell the truth, I notice. But you can wriggle your legs about under the desk, and that helps a lot. It's splendid to have so many boys to play with. I sit with Melty Bolter and he's fine. He's longer than me, but I'm wider.  Melty drawed a picture of Anne on his slate, and it was awful ugly, and I told him if he'd made pictures of Anne like that I'd lick him at recess. I thought first I'd draw one of him and put horns and a tail on it, but I was afraid it would hurt his feelings, and Anne says you should never hurt anyone's feelings. It seems it's dreadful to have your feelings hurt. It's better to knock a boy down than hurt his feelings if you must do something. Melty said he wasn't scared of me, but he'd just assume call it somebody else to blige me, so he rubbed out Anne's name and printed Barbara Shaw's under it.  Dora said primly that she liked school, but she was very quiet, even for her. And when at twilight Marilla bade her go upstairs to bed, she hesitated and began to cry. I'm—I'm frightened! she sobbed. I—I don't want to go upstairs alone in the dark.  I'm sure you've gone to bed alone all summer and never been frightened before. Dora still continued to cry, so Anne picked her up, cuddled her sympathetically and whispered, Tell Anne all about it, sweetheart. What are you frightened of? Of—of Mirabel Cotton's uncle, sobbed Dora. Mirabel Cotton told me all about her family today in school. Nearly everybody in her family has died, all her grandfathers and grandmothers and ever so many uncles and aunts. They have a habit of dying, Mirabel says. Mirabel's awful proud of having so many dead relations, and she told me what they all died of and what they said and how they looked in their coffins. And Mirabel says one of her uncles was seen walking around the house after he was buried. Her mother saw him. I don't mind the rest so much, but I can't help thinking about that uncle. Then went upstairs with Dora, and sat by her until she fell asleep. The next day Mirabel Cotton was kept in at recess, and gently but firmly given to understand that when you were so unfortunate as to possess an uncle who persisted in walking about houses after he had been decently interred, it was not in good taste to talk about that eccentric gentleman to your deskmate of tender years. Mirabel thought this very harsh. The Cotton's had not much to boast of. How was she to keep up her prestige among her schoolmates if she were forbidden to make capital out of the family ghost? September slipped by into a golden crimson graciousness of October. One Friday evening Diana came over. I'd a letter from Ella Kimball to-day, Anne, and she wants us to go over to tea to-morrow afternoon and meet her cousin, Irene Trent, from town. But we can't get one of our horses to go, for they'll all be in use to-morrow, and your pony is lame. So I suppose we can't go. Why can't we walk? suggested Anne. If we go straight back through the woods we'll strike the West Grafton Road not far from the Kimball Place. I was through that way last winter, and I know the road. It's no more than four miles, and we don't have to walk home, for Oliver Kimball will be sure to drive us. He'll be only too glad of the excuse for he goes to see Kerry Sloan and they say his father will hardly ever let him have a horse. It was accordingly arranged that they should walk, and the following afternoon they set out, going by way of Lover's Lane to the back of the Cuthbert farm, where they found a road leading into the heart of acres of glimmering beach and maple woods, which were all in a wondrous glow of flame and gold, lying in a great purple stillness and peace. It's as if the year we're kneeling to pray in a vast cathedral full of mellow stained light, isn't it, said Anne dreamily. It doesn't seem right to hurry through it, does it? It seems irreverent, like running in a church. We must hurry, though, said Diana glancing at her watch. We've left ourselves little enough time as it is. Well, I'll walk fast, but don't ask me to talk, said Anne, quickening her pace. I just want to drink the day's loveliness in. I feel as if she were holding it out to my lips like a cup of airy wine, and I'll take a sip at every step. Perhaps it was because she was so absorbed in drinking it in that Anne took the left turning when they came to a fork in the road. She should have taken the right, but ever afterward she counted it the most fortunate mistake of her life. They came out finally to a lonely grassy road with nothing inside along it but ranks of spruce saplings. Why, where are we? exclaimed Diana in bewilderment. This isn't the West Grafton Road. No, it's the baseline road in Middle Grafton, said Anne, rather shame-facedly. I must have taken the wrong turning at the fork. I don't know where we are exactly, but we must be all of three miles from Kimball still. Then we can't get there by five for it's half past four now, said Diana with a despairing look at her watch. We'll arrive after they have had their tea, and they'll have all the bother of getting hours over again. We'd better turn back and go home, suggested Anne humbly. But Diana, after consideration, vetoed this. No, we may as well go and spend the evening since we have come this far. A few yards further on the girls came to a place where the road forked again. Which of these do we take? asked Diana dubiously. Anne shook her head. I don't know, and we can't afford to make any more mistakes. Here is a gate and a lane leading right into the wood. There must be a house at the other side. Let us go down and inquire. What a romantic old lane this is, said Diana as they walked along its twists and turns. It ran under patriarchal old furs whose branches met above, creating a perpetual gloom in which nothing except moss could grow. On either hand were brown wood floors, crossed here and there by fallen lances of sunlight. All was very still and remote, as if the world and the cares of the world were far away. I feel as if we were walking through an enchanted forest, and Anne in a hushed tone. Do you suppose we'll ever find our way back to the real world again, Diana? We shall presently come to a palace with a spellbound princess in it, I think. Around the next turn they came in sight, not indeed of a palace, but of a little house, almost as surprising as a palace would have been in this province of conventional wooden farmhouses, all as much alike in general characteristics as if they had grown from the same seed. Anne stopped short in rapture, and Diana exclaimed, Oh, I know where we are now. That is the little stone house where Miss Lavender Lewis lives. Echo Lodge, she calls it, I think. I've often heard of it, but I've never seen it before. Isn't it a romantic spot? It's the sweetest, prettiest place I ever saw or imagined, said Anne delightedly. It looks like a bit out of a storybook or a dream. The house was a low-weaved structure built of undressed blocks of red-island sandstone, with a little peaked roof out of which peered two dormer windows with quaint wooden hoods over them, and two great chimneys. The whole house was covered with a luxuriant growth of ivy, finding easy foothold on the rough stonework and turned by autumn frosts to most beautiful bronze and wine-red tints. Before the house was an oblong garden into which the lane gate where the girls were standing opened. The house bounded it on one side. On the three others it was enclosed by an old stone dyke so overgrown with moss and grass and ferns that it looked like a high green bank. On the right and left the tall, dark spruces spread their palm-like branches over it, but below it was a little meadow, green with clover aftermath, sloping down to the blue loop of the Grafton River. No other house or clearing was in sight, nothing but hills and valleys covered with feathery young furs. I wonder what sort of a person Miss Lubas is, speculated Diana as they open the gate into the garden. They say she is very peculiar. She'll be interesting, then, said Anne decidedly. Peculiar people are always that at least, whatever else they are or are not. Didn't I tell you we would come to an enchanted palace? I knew the elves hadn't woven magic over that lane for nothing. But Miss Lavender Lewis is hardly a spellbound princess, laughed Diana. She's an old maid. She's forty-five and quite gray, I've heard. Oh, that's only part of the spell, asserted Anne confidently. At heart she's young and beautiful still, and if we only knew how to unloose the spell she would step forth radiant and fair again. But we don't know how. It's always and only the prince who knows that, and Miss Lavender's prince hasn't come yet. Perhaps some fatal mischance has befallen him, though that's against the law of all fairytales. I'm afraid he came long ago and went away again, said Diana. They say she used to be engaged to see even Irving, Paul's father, when they were young, but they quarreled and parted. Hush! warned Anne. The door's open. The girls paused in the port under the tendrils of Ivy and knocked at the open door. There was a patter of steps inside and a rather odd little personage presented herself. A girl of about fourteen, with a freckled face, a snub nose, a mouth so wide that it did really seem as if it stretched from ear to ear, and two long braids of fair hair tied with two enormous bows of blue ribbon. Is Miss Lewis at home? asked Diana. Yes, ma'am. Come in, ma'am. I'll tell Miss Lavender you're here, ma'am. She's upstairs, ma'am. With this the small handmaiden whisked out of side, and the girls, left alone, looked about them with delighted eyes. The interior of this wonderful little house was quite as interesting as its exterior. The room had a low ceiling and two square small-pained windows curting with muslin frills. All the furnishings were old-fashioned, but so well and daintily kept that the effect was delicious. But it must be candidly admitted that the most attractive feature to two healthy girls who had just tramped four miles through autumn air was a table set out with pale blue china and laden with delicacies, while little golden-hued fern scattered over the cloth gave it what Anne would have termed a festival air. Miss Lavender must be expecting company to tea, she whispered. There are six places, said.  She looked like a messenger from Pixieland. I suppose she could have told us the road, but I was curious to see Miss Lavender. Sh! She's coming. And with that Miss Lavender Lewis was standing in the doorway. The girls were so surprised that they forgot good manners and simply stared. They had unconsciously been expecting to see the usual type of elderly spinster as known to their experience, a rather angular personage with prim-grey hair and spectacles. Nothing more unlike Miss Lavender could possibly be imagined. She was a little lady with snow-white hair beautifully wavy and thick and carefully arranged in becoming puffs and coils. Beneath it was an almost girlish face, pink cheeked and sweet-lipped, with big soft brown eyes and dimples—actually dimples. She wore a very dainty gown of cream muslin with pale, huge roses on it, a gown which would have seemed ridiculously juvenile on most women of her age, but which suited Miss Lavender so perfectly that you never thought about it at all. Carlotta IV says that you wish to see me, she said in a voice that matched her appearance. We wanted to ask the right road to West Grafton, said Diana. We were invited to tea at Mr. Kimball's, but we took the wrong path coming through the woods and came out to the baseline instead of the West Grafton road. Do we take the right or left turning at your gate? The left, said Miss Lavender, with a hesitating glance at her tea-table. Then she exclaimed as if in a sudden little burst of resolution, but—oh, won't you stay and have tea with me? Please do. Mr. Kimball's will have tea over before you get there, and Carlotta IV and I will be so glad to have you. Diana looked mute and quiet at Anne. We'd like to stay, said Anne promptly, for she had made up her mind that she wanted to know more of this surprising Miss Lavender, if it won't inconvenience you. But you are expecting other guests, aren't you?" Miss Lavender looked at her tea-table again and blushed. I know you'll think me dreadfully foolish, she said. I am foolish, and I am ashamed of it when I'm found out, but never unless I am found out. I'm not expecting anybody. I was just pretending I was. You see, I was so lonely. I love company. That is the right kind of company, but so few people ever come here, because it is so far out of the way. Carlotta IV was lonely, too, so I just pretended I was going to have a tea-party. I cooked for it, and decorated the table for it, and set it with my mother's wedding-china, and I dressed up for it. Diana secretly thought Miss Lavender quite as peculiar as report had pictured her. The idea of a woman of forty-five playing at having a tea-party, just as if she were a little girl. But Anne of the Shining Eyes exclaimed joyfully, Oh! do you imagine things, too? That, too, revealed a kindred spirit to Miss Lavender. Yes, I do, she confessed boldly. Of course it's silly in anybody as old as I am. But what is the use of being an independent old maid if you can't be silly when you want to, and when it doesn't hurt anybody? A person must have some compensations. I don't believe I could live at times if I didn't pretend things. I'm not often caught at it, though, and Carlotta IV never tells. But I'm glad to be caught today, for you have really come, and I have tea all ready for you.  It's the white door at the head of the stairs. I must run out to the kitchen and see that Carlotta IV isn't letting the tea boil. Carlotta IV is a very good girl, but she will let the tea boil. Miss Lavender tripped off to the kitchen on hospitable thoughts in tent, and the girls found their way up to the spare room, an apartment as white as its door, lighted by the ivy-hung dormer window and looking, as Anne said, like the place where happy dreams grew. This is quite an adventure, isn't it? said Diana. And isn't Miss Lavender sweet, if she is a little odd? She doesn't look a bit like an old maid. She looks just as music sounds, I think, answered Anne. When they went down Miss Lavender was carrying in the teapot, and behind her, looking vastly pleased, was Carlotta IV with a plate of hot biscuits. Now, you must tell me your names, said Miss Lavender.  I love young girls. It's so easy to pretend I'm a girl myself when I'm with them. I do hate, with a little grimace, to believe I'm old. Now, who are you? Just for convenience sake. Diana Barry and Anne Shirley. May I pretend that I've known you for a hundred years and call you Anne and Diana right away? You may, the girls said both together.  Carlotta, you sit at the foot and help with the chicken. It is so fortunate that I made the sponge cake and donuts. Of course it was foolish to do it for imaginary guests. I know Carlotta IV thought so, didn't you, Carlotta? But do you see how well it has turned out? Of course they wouldn't have been wasted, for Carlotta IV and I could have eaten them through time, but sponge cake is not a thing that improves with time. That was a merry and memorable meal, and when it was over they all went out to the garden, lying in the glamour of sunset. I do think you have the loveliest place here, said Diana, looking round her admiringly. Why do you call it Echo Lodge? asked Anne.  Carlotta IV skipped off and returned with the horn. Blow it, Carlotta, commanded Miss Lavender. Carlotta accordingly blew, a rather raucous strident blast. There was a moment stillness, and then from the woods over the river came a multitude of fairy echoes, sweet, elusive, silvery, as if all the horns of Elfland were blowing against the sunset. Anne and Diana exclaimed in delight. Now laugh, Carlotta, laugh loudly. Carlotta, who would probably have obeyed if Miss Lavender had told her to stand on her head, climbed up on the stone bench and laughed loud and heartily. Back came the echoes as if a host of pixie people were mimicking her laughter in the purple woodlands and along the fur-fringed points. People always admire my echoes very much, said Miss Lavender, as if the echoes were her personal property. I love them myself. They are very good company, with a little pretending. On calm evenings Carlotta IV and I often sit out here and amuse ourselves with them. Carlotta, take back the horn and hang it carefully in its place. Why do you call her Carlotta IV, asked Diana, who was bursting with curiosity on this point? Just to keep her from getting mixed up with other Carlottas in my thoughts, said Miss Lavender seriously, they all look so much alike there's no telling them apart. Her name isn't really Carlotta at all. It is—let me see—what is it? I think it's Leonora. Yes, it is Leonora. You see, it is this way. When mother died ten years ago I couldn't stay here alone and I couldn't afford to pay the wages of a grown-up girl, so I got little Carlotta Bowman to come and stay with me for board and clothes. Her name really was Carlotta. She was Carlotta I. She was just Thirteen. She stayed with me till she was Sixteen, and then she went away to Boston because she could do better there. Her sister came to stay with me then. Her name was Julietta. Mrs. Bowman had a weakness for fancy names, I think, but she looked so like Carlotta that I kept calling her that all the time, and she didn't mind. So I just gave up trying to remember her right name. She was Carlotta II. And when she went away Evelina came, and she was Carlotta III. Now I have Carlotta IV. But when she is Sixteen—she's fourteen now—she will want to go to Boston too. And what I shall do then I really do not know. Carlotta IV is the last of the Bowman girls, and the best. The other Carlottas always let me see that they thought it's silly of me to pretend things, but Carlotta IV never does, no matter what she may really think. I don't care what people think about me if they don't let me see it. Well, said Diana, looking regretfully at the setting sun, I suppose we must go if we want to get to Mr. Kimball's before dark. We've had a lovely time, Miss Lewis. Won't you come again to see me? pleaded Miss Lavender. Tall Anne put her arm about the little lady. Indeed we shall, she promised. Now that we've discovered you we'll wear out our welcome coming to see you. Yes, we must go. We must tear ourselves away, as Paul Irving says every time he comes to Green Gables. Paul Irving? There was a subtle change in Miss Lavender's voice. Who is he? I didn't think there was anybody of that name in Avonlea. Anne felt vexed at her own heedlessness. She had forgotten about Miss Lavender's old romance when Paul's name slipped out. He is a little pupil of mine, she explained slowly. He came from Boston last year to live with his grandmother, Mrs. Irving, of the Shore Road. Is he Stephen Irving's son?  Yes. I'm going to give you girls a bunch of Lavender apiece, said Miss Lavender brightly, as if she had not heard the answer to her question. It's very sweet, don't you think? Mother always loved it. She planted these borders long ago. Father named me Lavender because he was so fond of it. The very first time he saw Mother was when he visited her home in East Grafton with her brother. He fell in love with her at first sight. And they put him in the spare room bed to sleep and the sheets were scented with Lavender, and he lay awake all night and thought of her. He always loved the scent of Lavender after that. And that was why he gave me the name. Don't forget to come back soon, girls, dear. We'll be looking for you, Carlotta IV and I. She opened the gate under the firs for them to pass through. She looked suddenly old and tired. The glow and radiance had faded from her face. Her parting smile was as sweet with ineradicable youth as ever, but when the girls looked back from the first curve in the lane, they saw her sitting on the old stone bench under the silver poplar in the middle of the garden, with her head leaning wearily on her hand. She does look lonely, said Diana softly. We must come often to see her. I think her parents gave her the only right and fitting name that could possibly be given her, said Anne. If they had been so blind as to name her Elizabeth or Nellie or Muriel, she must have been called Lavender just the same, I think. It's so suggestive of sweetness and old-fashioned graces and silk attire. Now, my name just smacks of bread and butter, patchwork and chores. Oh, I don't think so, said Diana. Anne seems to be real stately and like a queen. But I'd like Karen a book if it happened to be your name. I think people make their names nice or ugly just by what they are themselves. I can't bear Josie or Gertie for names now, but before I knew the pie-girls I thought them real pretty. It's a lovely idea, Diana, said Anne enthusiastically, living so that you beautify your name, even if it wasn't beautiful to begin with, making it stand in people's thoughts for something so lovely and pleasant that they never think of it by itself. Thank you, Diana. End of Chapter Twenty-One Chapter Twenty-Two of Anne of Avonlea by Lucy Maud Montgomery Read for LibriVox.org by Karen Savage in March 2008 Chapter Twenty-Two Odds and Ends So you had tea at the Stone House with Lavender Lewis, said Marula at the breakfast-table next morning. What is she like now? It's over fifteen years since I saw her last. It was one Sunday in Grafton Church. I suppose she has changed a great deal. Davy Keith, when you want something you can't reach, ask to have it past and don't spread yourself over the table in that fashion. Did you ever see Paul Irving doing that when he was here to Meals? But Paul's arms are longer in mine, grumble Davy. They've had eleven years to grow and mine have only had seven. Besides, I did ask, but you and Anne was so busy talking you didn't pay any attention. Besides, Paul's never been here to any meal except tea, and it's easier to be polite at tea than at breakfast. You ain't half as hungry. It's an awful long time between supper and breakfast.  Of course I don't know what Miss Lavender used to look like, but I don't fancy somehow that she has changed a great deal, said Anne after she had helped Davy to Mabel's syrup, giving him two spoonfuls to pacify him. Her hair is snow-white, but her face is fresh and almost girlish, and she has the sweetest brown eyes. It's a pretty shade of wood-brown with little golden glints in them, and her voice makes you think of white satin and tinkling water and fairy bells all mixed up together. She was reckoned a great beauty when she was a girl, said Marilla. I never knew her very well, but I liked her as far as I did know her. Some folks thought her peculiar even then. Davy, if ever I catch you at such a trick again, you'll be made to wait for your meals till everyone else is done, like the French. Most conversations between Anne and Marilla in the presence of the twins were punctuated by these rebukes, Davy word. In this instance, Davy, sad to relate, not being able to scoop up the last drops of his syrup with his spoon, had solved the difficulty by lifting his plate in both hands and applying his small pink tongue to it. Anne looked at him with such horrified eyes that the little sinner turned red and said half-shamed fazedly, half-defiantly. There ain't any wasted that way. People who are different from other people are always called peculiar, said Anne, and Miss Lavender is certainly different, though it's hard to say just where the difference comes in. Most it is because she is one of those people who never grow old. One might as well grow old when all your generation do, said Marilla, rather reckless of her pronouns. If you don't, you don't fit in anywhere. Far as I can learn Lavender Lewis has just dropped out of everything. She's lived in that out-of-the-way place until everybody has forgotten her. That stone house is one of the oldest on the island. Old Mr. Lewis built it eighty years ago when he came out from England. Davy stopped juggling Doris' elbow. Oh, I saw you. You needn't try to look innocent. What does make you behave so this morning? Maybe I got out on the wrong side of the bed, suggested Davy. Melty Bolter says if you do that things are bound to go wrong with you all day. His grandmother told him. But which is the right side? And what do you have to do when your bed gets to the wall? I want to know. I've always wondered what went wrong between Stephen Irving and Lavender Lewis, continued Marilla, ignoring Davy. They were certainly engaged twenty-five years ago, and then all at once it was broken off. I don't know what the trouble was, but it must have been something terrible, for he went away to the States and never come home since. Perhaps it was nothing very dreadful after all. I think the little things in life often make more trouble than the big things, said Anne, with one of those flashes of insight which experience could not have bettered. Marilla, please don't say anything about my being at Miss Lavender's to Mrs. Lynde. She'd be sure to ask a hundred questions, and somehow I wouldn't like it. Nor Miss Lavender, either, if she knew, I feel sure. I daresay Rachel would be curious, admitted Marilla, though she hasn't as much time as she used to for looking after other people's affairs. She's tied home now on account of Thomas, and she's feeling pretty downhearted, for I think she's beginning to lose hope of his ever getting better. Rachel would be left pretty lonely if anything happens to him, with all her children settled out west, except Eliza in town, and she doesn't like her husband. Marilla's pronoun slandered Eliza was very fond of her husband. Rachel says if he'd only brace up and exert his willpower he'd get better. But what is the use of asking a jellyfish to sit up straight? continued Marilla. Thomas Lynde never had any willpower to exert.   But there I shouldn't talk so. Rachel has been a good wife to him. He'd never have amounted to anything without her, that's certain. He was born to be ruled, and it's well he fell into the hands of a clever, capable manager like Rachel. He didn't mind her way. It saved him the bother of ever making up his own mind about anything. Davey, do stop squirming like an eel. I've nothing else to do, protested Davey. I can't eat any more, and it's no fun watching you and Anne eat.  I wanted some feathers for an Indian headdress, said Davey Sulkily. Milty Bolter has a dandy one made out of the feathers his mother gave him when she killed their old white gobbler. You might let me have some. That rooster's got ever so many more than he wants. You may have the old feather duster in the garret, said Anne, and I'll dye them green and red and yellow for you. You do spoil that boy dreadfully, said Marilla, when Davey with a radiant face had followed Prim Dora out. Marilla's education had made great strides in the past six years, but she had not yet been able to rid herself of the idea that it was very bad for a child to have too many of its wishes indulged. All the boys of his class have Indian headdresses, and Davey wants one too, said Anne. I know how it feels. I'll never forget how I used to long for puffed sleeves when all the other girls had them. And Davey isn't being spoiled. He is improving every day. Think what a difference there is in him since he came here a year ago. He certainly doesn't get into as much mischief since he began to go to school, acknowledged Marilla. I suppose he works off the tendency with the other boys, but it's a wonder to me we haven't heard from Richard Keith before this. Never a word since last May. I'll be afraid to hear from him, sighed Anne, beginning to clear away the dishes. If a letter should come I'd dread opening it, for fear it would tell us to send the twins to him. A month later a letter did come, but it was not from Richard Keith. A friend of his wrote to say that Richard Keith had died of consumption a fortnight previously. The rider of the letter was the executor of his will, and by that will the sum of two thousand dollars was left to Miss Marilla Cuthbert in trust for David and Dora Keith until they came of age or married. In the meantime the interest was to be used for their maintenance. It seems dreadful to be glad of anything in connection with the death, said Anne soberly. I'm sorry for poor Mr. Keith, but I am glad that we can keep the twins. It's a very good thing about the money, said Marilla practically. I wanted to keep them, but I really didn't see how I could afford to do it, especially when they grew older. The rent of the farm doesn't do any more than keep the house, and I was bound that not a cent of your money should be spent on them. You do far too much for them as it is. Dora didn't need that new hat you bought her any more than a cat needs two tails. But now the way is made clear and they are provided for. Davy and Dora were delighted when they heard that they were to live at Green Gables for good. The death of an uncle whom they had never seen could not weigh a moment in the balance against that. But Dora had one misgiving. Was Uncle Richard buried? She whispered to Anne. Yes, dear, of course. He—he—isn't like Mirabelle Cotton's uncle, is he? In a still more agitated whisper. He won't walk about houses after being buried, will he, Anne? CHAPTER XXIII I think I'll take a walk through to Echo Lodge this evening, said Anne, one Friday afternoon in December. It looks like snow, said Marilla dubiously. I'll be there before the snow comes, and I mean to stay all night long. Diana can't go because she has company, and I'm sure Miss Lavender will be looking for me tonight. It's a whole fortnight since I was there. Anne had paid many a visit to Echo Lodge since that October day. Sometimes she and Diana drove around by the road. Sometimes they walked through the woods. When Diana could not go, Anne went alone. Between her and Miss Lavender had sprung up one of those fervent, helpful friendships, possible only between a woman who has kept the freshness of youth in her heart and soul, and a girl whose imagination and intuition supplied the place of experience. Anne had at last discovered a real kindred spirit, while into the little lady's lonely sequestered life of dreams Anne and Diana came with the wholesome joy and exhilaration of the outer existence, which Miss Lavender, the world forgetting, by the world forgot, had long ceased to share. They brought an atmosphere of youth and reality to the Little Stone House. Carlotta IV always greeted them with her very widest smile, and Carlotta's smiles were fearfully wide, loving them for the sake of her adored mistress as well as for her own. Never had there been such hijinks held in the Little Stone House as were held that beautiful, late-lingering autumn, when November seemed October over again, and even December ate the sunshine and hazes of summer. But on this particular day it seemed as if December had remembered that it was time for winter, and had suddenly turned dull and brooding, with a windless hush predictive of coming snow. Nevertheless Anne keenly enjoyed her walk through the great gray maze of the beachlands. Though alone, she never found it lonely. Her imagination peopled her path with merry companions, and with these she carried on a gay, pretended conversation that was wittier and more fascinating than conversations or apt to be in real life, where peoples sometimes fail most lamentably to talk up to the requirements. In a make-believe assembly of choice spirits, everybody says just the thing you want her to say, and so gives you the chance to say just what you want to say. Attended by this invisible company Anne traversed the woods, and arrived at the fir lane just as broad and feathery flakes began to flutter down softly. At the first bend she came upon Miss Lavender, standing under a big, broad branching fir. She wore a gown of warm, rich red, and her head and shoulders were wrapped in a silvery gray silk shawl. He looked like the queen of the firwood fairies, called Anne merely.  I should have been very lonely if you hadn't come. Even the dreams and the echoes wouldn't have been enough company. Oh, Anne, how pretty you are! She added suddenly, looking up at the tall, slim girl with a soft rose flush of walking on her face. How pretty and how young! It's so delightful to be seventeen, isn't it? I do envy you, concluded Miss Lavender candidly. But you are only seventeen at heart, smiled Anne. No, I'm old. Or rather middle-aged, which is far worse, sighed Miss Lavender. Sometimes I can pretend I'm not, but at other times I realize it, and I can't reconcile myself to it as most women seem to. I'm just as rebellious as I was when I discovered my first gray hair. Now, Anne, don't look as if you were trying to understand. Seventeen can't understand. I'm going to pretend right away that I am seventeen too, and I can do it now that you're here.  We're going to have a jolly evening. Tea first. What do you want for tea? We'll have whatever you like. Do think of something nice and indigestible. There were sounds of riot and mirth in the little stone house that night. What with cooking and feasting and making candy and laughing and pretending, it is quite true that Miss Lavender and Anne comported themselves in a fashion entirely unsuited to the dignity of a spinster of forty-five and a sedate school-ma'am. Then when they retired, they sat down on the rug before the grate in the parlor, lighted only by the soft fireshine, and perfumed deliciously by Miss Lavender's open rose jar on the mantel. The wind had risen and was sighing and wailing around the eaves, and the snow was thudding softly against the windows, as if a hundred storm-sprites were tapping for entrance. I'm so glad you're here, Anne, said Miss Lavender nibbling at her candy. If you weren't, I should be blue. Very blue. Almost navy blue. Dreams and make-believes are all very well in the daytime and the sunshine, but when dark and storm come they fail to satisfy. One once real things, then. But you don't know this. Seventeen never knows it. At seventeen dreams do satisfy, because you think the realities are waiting for you further on. When I was seventeen, Anne, I didn't think forty-five would find me a white-haired little old maid with nothing but dreams to fill my life. But you aren't an old maid, said Anne, smiling into Miss Lavender's wistful wood-brown eyes. Old maids are born. They don't become. Some are born old maids, some achieve old maidenhood, and some have old maidenhood thrust upon them, parodied Miss Lavender whimsically. You are one of those who have achieved it, then, laughed Anne, and you've done it so beautifully that if every old maid were like you, they would come into the fashion, I think. I always like to do things as well as possible, said Miss Lavender meditatively, and since an old maid I had to be I was determined to be a very nice one. People say I'm odd, but it's just because I follow my own way of being an old maid and refuse to copy the traditional pattern. Did any one ever tell you anything about Stephen Irving and me? Yes, said Anne candidly, I've heard that you and he were engaged once. So we were, twenty-five years ago—a lifetime ago. And we were to have been married that next spring. I had my wedding dress made, although nobody but Mother and Stephen ever knew that. We'd been engaged in a way almost all our lives, you might say. When Stephen was a little boy, his mother would bring him here when she came to see my mother.  I remember that I said, Thank you! And when he was gone I told Mother very gravely that there was a great weight off my mind, because I wasn't frightened anymore about having to be an old maid. How poor Mother laughed! And what went wrong? asked Anne breathlessly.  I hardly know who was the more to blame for it. Stephen did really begin it, but I suppose I provoked him by some foolishness of mine. He had a rival or two, you see. I was vain and cuchedish, and liked to tease him a little. He was a very high, strung, sensitive fellow. Well, we parted in a temper on both sides, but I thought it would come all right—and it would have if Stephen hadn't come back too soon.  Oh, you needn't smile. It's only too true. I do sulk, and Stephen came back before I had finished sulking. I wouldn't listen to him, and I wouldn't forgive him. And so he went away for good. He was too proud to come again. And then I sulked because he didn't come. I might have sent for him, perhaps, but I couldn't humble myself to do that. I was just as proud as he was. Pride and sulkiness make a very bad combination, Anne. But I could never care for anybody else, and I didn't want to. I knew I would rather be an old maid for a thousand years than marry anybody who wasn't Stephen Irving. Well, it all seems like a dream now, of course. How sympathetic you look, Anne. As sympathetic as only seventeen can look. But don't overdo it. I am really a very happy, contented little person in spite of my broken heart. My heart did break, if ever a heart did, when I realized that Stephen Irving was not coming back. But Anne, a broken heart in real life isn't half as dreadful as it is in books. It's a good deal like a bad tooth, though you won't think that a very romantic simile. It takes spells of aching and gives you a sleepless night now and then. But between times it lets you enjoy life and dreams and echoes and peanut candy as if there were nothing to matter with it. And now you're looking disappointed. You don't think I'm half as interesting a person as you did five minutes ago, when you believed I was always the prey of a tragic memory bravely hidden beneath external smiles. That's the worst or the best of real life, Anne. It won't let you be miserable. It keeps on trying to make you comfortable and succeeding, even when you're determined to be unhappy and romantic. Isn't this candy scrumptious? I've eaten far more than is good for me already, but I'm going to keep recklessly on. After a little silence Miss Lavender said abruptly, It gave me a shock to hear about Stephen's son that first day you were here, Anne. I have never been able to mention him to you since, but I've wanted to know all about him. What sort of a boy is he? He is the dearest, sweetest child I ever knew, Miss Lavender, and he pretends things too, just as you and I do. I'd like to see him, said Miss Lavender softly as if talking to herself. I wonder if he looks anything like the little dream boy who lives here with me, my little dream boy. If you would like to see Paul, I'll bring him through with me some time, said Anne. I would like it, but not too soon. I want to get used to the thought. There might be more pain than pleasure in it if he looked too much like Stephen, or if he didn't look enough like him. In a month's time you may bring him. Accordingly a month later, Anne and Paul walked through the woods to the stone house and met Miss Lavender in the lane. She had not been expecting them just then, and she turned very pale. So this is Stephen's boy, she said, in a low tone, taking Paul's hand and looking at him as he stood, beautiful and boyish in his smart little fur coat and cap. He is very like his father. Everybody says I'm a chip off the old block, remarked Paul, quiet at his ease. Anne, who had been watching the little scene, drew a relieved breath. She saw that Miss Lavender and Paul had taken to each other, and that there would be no constraint or stiffness. Miss Lavender was a very sensible person in spite of her dreams and romance, and after that first little betrayal she tucked her feelings out of sight and entertained Paul as brightly and naturally as if he were anybody's son who had come to see her. They all had a jolly afternoon together, and such a feast of fat things by way of supper as would have made old Miss Serving hold up her hands in horror believing that Paul's digestion would be ruined forever. Come again, laddie, said Miss Lavender shaking hands with him at parting. You may kiss me if you like, said Paul gravely. Miss Lavender stooped and kissed him. How did you know I wanted to, she whispered.  As a rule I don't like to be kissed. Boys don't, you know, Miss Lewis, but I think I'd rather like to have you kiss me. And of course I'll come to see you again. I think I'd like to have you for a particular friend of mine if you don't object." I—I don't think I shall object, said Miss Lavender. She turned and went in very quickly, but a moment later she was waving a gay and smiling goodbye to them from the window. I like Miss Lavender, announced Paul as they walked through the beech-woods. I like the way she looked at me, and I liked her stone house, and I like Carlotta IV. I wish Grandma Irving had a Carlotta IV instead of a Mary Jo. I feel sure Carlotta IV wouldn't think I was wrong and my upper story when I told her what I think about things. Wasn't that a splendid tea we had, Teacher? Grandma says a boy shouldn't be thinking about what he gets to eat, but he can't help it sometimes when he is real hungry. You know, Teacher. I don't think Miss Lavender would make a boy eat porridge for breakfast if he didn't like it. She'd get things for him he did like. But of course—Paul was nothing if not fair-minded—that mightn't be very good for him. It's very nice for a change, though, Teacher. You know. CHAPTER XXIV A PROPHET IN HIS OWN COUNTRY One May Day, Avonlea folks were mildly excited over some Avonlea notes, signed observer, which appeared in the Charlotte town daily enterprise. Gossip ascribed the authorship thereof to Charlie Sloan, partly because the said Charlie had indulged in similar literary flights in times past, and partly because one of the notes seemed to embody a sneer at Gilbert Blythe. Avonlea Juvenile Society persisted in regarding Gilbert Blythe and Charlie Sloan as rivals in the good graces of a certain damsel with grey eyes and an imagination. Gossip as usual was wrong. Gilbert Blythe, aided and abetted by Anne, had written the notes, putting in the one about himself as a blind. Only two of the notes have any bearing on this history. Rumour has it that there will be a wedding in our village ere the daisies are in bloom. A new and highly respected citizen will lead to the Hymenile altar one of our most popular ladies. Uncle Abe, our well-known weather prophet, predicts a violent storm of thunder and lightning for the evening of the twenty-third of May beginning at seven o'clock sharp. The area of the storm will extend over the greater part of the province. People travelling that evening will do well to take umbrellas and macintoshes with them. Uncle Abe really has predicted a storm for some time this spring, said Gilbert. But do you suppose Mr. Harrison really does go to see Isabella Andrews? No! said Anne, laughing. I'm sure he only goes to play checkers with Mr. Harrison Andrews. But Mrs. Lynn says she knows Isabella Andrews must be going to get married. She's in such good spirits this spring. Poor old Uncle Abe felt rather indignant over the notes. He suspected that observer was making fun of him. He angrily denied having assigned any particular date for his storm, but nobody believed him. Life and Avonlea continued on the smooth and even tenor of its way. The planting was put in, the improvers celebrated an arbor day, each improver set out or caused to be set out five ornamental trees. As the society now numbered forty members, this meant a total of two hundred young trees. Early oats greened over the red fields. Apple orchards flung great blossoming arms about the farmhouses, and the Snow Queen adorned itself as a bride for her husband.  She thought it very poetical. Marilla thought she was risking her life. Thanksgiving should be celebrated in the spring, said Anne, one evening to Marilla, as they sat on the front doorsteps and listened to the silver-sweet chorus of the frogs. I think it would be ever so much better than having it in November when everything is dead or asleep. Then you have to remember to be thankful. But in May one simply can't help being thankful—that they are alive if for nothing else. I feel exactly as Eve must have felt in the Garden of Edom before the trouble began. Is that grass in the hollow green or golden? It seems to me, Marilla, that a pearl of a day like this, when the blossoms are out and the winds don't know where to blow from next for sheer, crazy delight, must be pretty near as good as heaven. Marilla looked scandalized and glanced apprehensively around to make sure the twins were not within earshot. They came around the corner of the house just then. Ain't it an awful nice-smelling evening? asked Davy, sniffing delightedly as he swung a hoe in his grimy hands. He had been working in his garden. That spring Marilla, by way of turning Davy's passion for reveling in mud and clay into useful channels, had given him and Dora a small plot of ground for a garden. Both had eagerly gone to work in a characteristic fashion. Dora planted, weeded, and watered carefully, systematically, and dispassionately. As a result, her plot was already green, with prim, orderly little rows of vegetables and annuals. Davy, however, worked with more zeal than discretion. He dug, and hoed, and raked, and watered, and transplanted so energetically that his seeds had no chance for their lives. How is your garden coming on, Davy boy? asked Anne. Kind of slow, said Davy with a sigh. I don't know why the things don't grow better. Melty Bolcher says I must have planted them in the dark of the moon, and that's the whole trouble. He says you must never sow seeds, or kill pork, or cut your hair, or do any important thing in the wrong time of the moon. Is that true, Anne? I want to know. Maybe if you didn't pull your plants out by the roots every other day to see how they're getting on at the other end they'd do better, said Marilla sarcastically. I only pulled six of them up, protested Davy. I wanted to see if there was grubs at the roots. Melty Bolcher said if it wasn't the moon's fault it must be grubs. But I only found one grub. It was a great, big, juicy, curly grub. I put him on a stone and got another stone and smashed him flat. He made a jolly squish, I tell you. I was sorry there wasn't more of them. Dora's garden was planted the same time as mine and her things are growing all right. It can't be the moon, concluded Davy in a reflective tone. Marilla, look at that apple tree, said Anne. Why, the thing is human. It's reaching out long arms to pick its own pink skirts dangerly up and provoke us to admiration. Those yellow duchess trees always bear well, said Marilla complacently. That tree'll be loaded this year. I'm real glad. They're great for pies. But neither Marilla nor Anne nor anybody else was fated to make pies out of yellow duchess apples that year. The twenty-third of May came. An unseasonably warm day, as none realized more keenly than Anne and her little beehive of pupils, sweltering over fractions and syntax in the Avonlea schoolroom. A hot breeze blew all the forenoon, but after noon-hour it died away into a heavy stillness. At half-past three, Anne heard a low rumble of thunder. She promptly dismissed school at once, so that the children might get home before the storm came. As they went out to the playground, Anne perceived a certain shadow and gloom over the world in spite of the fact that the sun was still shining brightly. Annette Bell caught her hand nervously. Oh, teacher, look at that awful cloud! Anne looked and gave an exclamation of dismay. In the north-west, a massive cloud such as she had never in all her life beheld before was rapidly rolling up. It was dead black, save where its curled and fringed edges showed a ghastly, livid white. There was something about it indescribably menacing as it gloomed up in the clear blue sky. Now and again a bolt of lightning shot across it, followed by a savage growl. It hung so low that it almost seemed to be touching the tops of the wooded hills. Mr. Harmon Andrews came clattering up the hill in his truck wagon, urging his team of greys to their utmost speed. He pulled them to a halt opposite the school. His Uncle Laibs hid it for once in his life, Anne, he shouted. His storm's coming a little ahead of time. Did you ever see the like of that cloud? Here all you young ones that are going my way pile in, and those that ain't scoot for the post office if you've got more in a quarter of a mile to go, and stay there till the shower's over. Anne caught Davion door by the hands and flew down the hill, along the birch path, and passed Violet Vale and Willow Mirror as fast as the twin's fat legs could go. They reached Green Gables not a moment too soon and were joined at the door by Marilla, who had been hustling her ducks and chickens under shelter. As they dashed into the kitchen the light seemed to vanish as if blown out by some mighty breath. The awful cloud rolled over the sun and a darkness as a late twilight fell across the world. At the same moment, with a crash of thunder and a blinding glare of lightning, the hail swooped down and blotted the landscape out in one white fury. Through all the clamour of the storm came the thud of torn branches striking the house and the sharp crack of breaking glass. In three minutes every pane in the west and north windows was broken and the hail poured in through the apertures covering the floor with stones, the smallest of which was as big as a hen's egg. For three quarters of an hour the storm raged unabated and no one who underwent it ever forgot it. Marilla for once in her life shaken out of her composure by sheer terror knelt by her rocking chair in a corner of the kitchen gasping and sobbing between the deafening thunder-peels. Anne, white as paper, had dragged the sofa away from the window and sat on it with a twin on either side. Davy at the first crash had howled, Anne, Anne, is it the judgment day, Anne, and I'm never meant to be naughty, and then had buried his face in Anne's lap and kept it there, his little body quivering. Dora, somewhat pale but quite composed, sat with her hand clasped in Anne's, quiet and motionless. It is doubtful if an earthquake would have disturbed Dora. Then almost as suddenly as it began the storm ceased. The hail stopped, the thunder rolled and muttered away to the eastward, and the sun burst out, merry and radiant over a world so changed that it seemed an absurd thing to think that a scant three-quarters of an hour could have affected such a transformation. Marilla rose from her knees, weak and trembling, and dropped on her rocker. Her face was haggard, and she looked ten years older. Have we all come out of that alive? She asked solemnly. You bet we have, pied Davy cheerfully, quite his own man again. I wasn't a bit scared, either, only just at the first. We come on a fellow so sudden, I made up my mind quick as a wink that I wouldn't fight Teddy Sloan on Monday as I'd promised, but now maybe I will. Say, Dora, was you scared? Yes, I was a little scared, said Dora primally, but I held tight to Anne's hand and said my prayers over and over again. Well, I'd have said my prayers too if I'd thought of it, said Davy. But, he added triumphantly, you see I came through just as safe as you for all I didn't say him. Anne got Marilla glassful of her potent current wine. How potent, it was Anne in her earlier days had had all too good reason to know, and then they went to the door to look out on the strange scene. Far and wide was a white carpet, knee deep of hailstones. Drifts of them were heaped up under the eaves and on the steps. When three or four days later those hailstones melted, the havoc they had wrought was plainly seen. For every green growing thing in the field or garden was cut off. Not only was every blossom stripped from the apple trees, but great spows and branches were wrenched away, and out of the two hundred trees set out by the improvers by far the greater number were snapped off or torn to shreds. Can it possibly be the same world it was an hour ago? asked Anne daisedly.  The like of this has never been known in Prince Edward Island, said Marilla. Never. I remember when I was a girl there was a bad storm, but it was nothing to this. We'll hear of terrible destruction, you may be sure. I do hope none of the children were caught out in it, murmured Anne anxiously. As it was discovered later none of the children had been, since all those who had any distance to go had taken Mr. Andrew's excellent advice and sought refuge at the post office. There comes John Henry Carter, said Marilla. John Henry came wading through the hailstones with the rather scared grin.  Mr. Harrison sent me over to see if yous had come out all right. Were none of us killed, said Marilla grimly, and none of the buildings was struck. I hope you got off equally well. Yes, sir. Not quite so well, ma'am. We was struck. The lightning knocked over the kitchen chimbly, and come down the flue, and knocked over Ginger's cage, and tore a hole in the floor, and went into the cellar. Yes, sir. Was Ginger hurt? queried Anne. Yes, sir. He was hurt pretty bad. He was killed. Later on Anne went over to comfort Mr. Harrison.  Poor Ginger won't call you any more names, Anne. He said mournfully. Anne could never have imagined herself crying on Ginger's account, but the tears came into her eyes. It was all the company I had, Anne, and now he's dead. Well, well, I'm an old fool to care so much. I'll let on, I don't care. I know you're going to say something sympathetic as soon as I stop talking, but don't. If you did, I'd cry like a baby. Hasn't this been a terrible storm? I guess folks won't laugh at Uncle Abe's predictions again. Seems as if all the storms that he's been prophesying all his life that never happened came all at once. Beats all how he struck the very day, though, don't it? Look at the mess we have here. I must hustle round and get some boards to patch up that hole in the floor. Avonlea folks did nothing the next day but visit each other and compare damages. The roads were impassable for wheels by reason of the hailstones, so they walked or rode on horseback. The mail came late with ill tidings from all over the province. Houses had been struck, people killed and injured, the whole telephone and telegraph system had been disorganized, and any number of young stock exposed in the fields had perished. Uncle Abe waited out to the blacksmith's forge early in the morning and spent the whole day there. It was Uncle Abe's hour of triumph, and he enjoyed it to the full. It would be doing Uncle Abe an injustice to say that he was glad the storm had happened. But since it had to be, he was very glad he had predicted it, to the very day, too. Uncle Abe forgot that he had ever denied setting the day. As for the trifling discrepancy in the hour, that was nothing. We arrived at Green Gables in the evening, and found Marilla and Anne busily engaged in nailing strips of oilcloth over the broken windows. "'Goodness only knows when we'll get glass for them,' said Marilla. Mr. Barry went over to Carmody this afternoon, but not a pain could he get for love or money. Lawson and Blair were cleaned out by the Carmody people by ten o'clock. "'Was the storm bad at White Sands, Gilbert?' "'I should say so. I was caught in the school with all the children, and I thought some of them would go mad with fright. Three of them fainted, and two girls took hysterics, and Tommy Blewitt did nothing but shriek at the top of his voice the whole time. "'I only squealed once,' said Davy proudly. "'My garden was all smashed flat,' he continued mournfully, but so was Doris,' he added, in a tone which indicated that there was yet bomb and gilead. Anne came running down from the West Gable. "'Oh, Gilbert, have you heard the news? Mr. Levi Bolter's old house was struck and burned to the ground. It seems to me that I am dreadfully wicked to feel glad over that when so much damage has been done. Mr. Bolter says he believes the avus magicked up that storm on purpose.' "'Well, one thing is certain,' said Gilbert, laughing. Observer has made Uncle Leib's reputation as a weather-profit. Uncle Leib's storm will go down in local history. It is a most extraordinary coincidence that it should have come on the very day we selected. I actually have a half-guilty feeling as if I really had magicked it up. We may as well rejoice over the old house being removed, for there's not much to rejoice over where our young trees are concerned. Not ten of them have escaped.' "'Oh, well, we'll just have to plant them over again next spring,' said Anne philosophically. That is one good thing about this world. There are always sure to be more springs.' End of Chapter 24 Chapter 25 of Anne of Avonlea by Lucy Mod Montgomery Read for LibriVox.org by Karen Savage in March 2008 Chapter 25 An Avonlea Scandal One blithe June morning a fortnight after Uncle Leib's storm, Anne came slowly through the green gable's yard from the garden, carrying in her hands two blighted stalks of white narcissus. "'Look, Marilla,' she said sorrowfully, holding up the flowers before the eyes of a grim lady with her hair quaffed in a green gingham apron, who was going into the house with a plucked chicken.  I am so sorry. I wanted some for Matthew's grave. He was always so fond of June lilies. I kind of miss them myself,' admitted Marilla, though it doesn't seem right to lament over them when so many worse things have happened, all the crops destroyed as well as the fruit. "'But people have sown their oats over again,' said Anne comfortingly, and Mr. Harrison says he thinks if we have a good summer they will come out all right, though late. And my annuals are all coming up again. But, oh, nothing can replace the June lilies. Poor little Hester Gray will have none, either. I went all the way back to her garden last night, but there wasn't one. I'm sure she'll miss them.' "'I don't think it's right for you to say such things, Anne. I really don't,' said Marilla severely. "'Hester Gray has been dead for thirty years, and her spirit is in heaven, I hope.' "'Yes, but I believe she loves and remembers her garden here still,' said Anne. "'I'm sure no matter how long I'd lived in heaven I'd look down and see somebody putting flowers on my grave. If I had had a garden here like Hester Gray's, it would take me more than thirty years, even in heaven, to forget being homesick for it by spells.' "'Well, don't let the twins hear you talking like that,' was Marilla's feeble protest, as she carried her chicken into the house. Anne pinned her Narcissi on her hair, and went to the Lane Gate, where she stood for a while, sunning herself in the June brightness, before going in to attend to her Saturday morning duties. The world was growing lovely again. Old Mother Nature was doing her best to remove the traces of the storm, and though she was not to succeed fully for many a moon, she was really accomplishing wonders. "'I wish I could just be idle all day to day,' Anne told a bluebird, who was singing and swinging on a willow-bow. But a school-ma'am, who is also helping to bring up twins, can't indulge in laziness, birdie.  You are just putting the feelings of my heart into song ever so much better than I could myself. Why, who is coming?'  When it drew near, Anne recognized the driver as the son of the station-agent at Bright River, but his companion was a stranger. A scrap of a woman, who sprang nimbly down at the gate almost before the horse came to a standstill.  In spite of having driven eight miles over a dusty road, she was as neat as if she had just stepped out of the proverbial band-box. Is this where Mr. James A. Harrison lives, she inquired briskly? No, Mr. Harrison lives over there, said Anne, quite lost in astonishment. Well, I did think this place seemed too tidy—much too tidy for James A. to be living here, unless he has greatly changed since I knew him, chirped the little lady. Is it true that James A. is going to be married to some woman living in this settlement? No. Oh, no! cried Anne, flushing so guiltily that the stranger looked curiously at her, as if she half suspected her of matrimonial designs on Mr. Harrison. But I saw it in an island paper, persisted the fair unknown. A friend sent a marked copy to me. Friends are always so ready to do such things. James A.'s name was written in over New Citizen. Oh, that note was only meant as a joke, gasped Anne. Mr. Harrison has no intention of marrying anybody, I assure you he hasn't. I'm very glad to hear it, said the rosy lady, climbing nimbly back to her seat in the wagon, because he happens to be married already. I am his wife. Oh, you may well look surprised. I suppose he has been masquerading as a bachelor in breaking heart's right and left. Well, well, James A., nodding vigorously over the fields of the long White House, your fun is over. I am here, though I wouldn't have bothered coming if I hadn't thought you were up to some mischief. I suppose, turning to Anne, that parrot of his is as profane as ever. His parrot is dead. I think, gasped poor Anne, who couldn't have felt sure of her own name at that precise moment. Dead! Everything will be all right, then, cried the rosy lady jubilantly. I can manage James A. if that bird is out of the way. With which cryptic utterance she went joyfully on her way, and Anne flew to the kitchen door to meet Marilla. Anne, who was that woman? Marilla, said Anne solemnly, but with dancing eyes. Do I look as if I were crazy? Not more so than usual, said Marilla, with no thought of being sarcastic. Well, then, do you think I am awake? Anne, what nonsense has got into you? Who was that woman, I say?  She must be real. Anyway, I am sure I couldn't have imagined such a bonnet. She says she is Mr. Harrison's wife, Marilla. Marilla stared in her turn. His wife? Anne, surely. Then what has he been passing himself off as an unmarried man for? I don't suppose he did really, said Anne, trying to be just. He never said he wasn't married. People simply took it for granted. Oh, Marilla, what will Mrs. Lynde say to this? They found out what Mrs. Lynde had to say when she came up that evening. Mrs. Lynde wasn't surprised. Mrs. Lynde had always expected something of the sort. Mrs. Lynde had always known there was something about Mr. Harrison. To think of his deserting his wife, she said indignantly, it's like something you'd read of in the States, but who would expect such a thing to happen right here in Avonlea? But we don't know that he deserted her, protested Anne, determined to believe her friend innocent till he was proved guilty. But we don't know the rights of it at all. Well, we soon will. I am going straight over there, said Mrs. Lynde, who had never learned that there was such a word as delicacy in the dictionary. I'm not supposed to know anything about her arrival, and Mr. Harrison was to bring some medicine for Thomas from Cromedy today, so that will be a good excuse. I'll find out the whole story and come in and tell you on the way back. Mrs. Lynde rushed in where Anne had feared to tread. Nothing would have induced the latter to go over to the Harrison place. But she had her natural and proper sure of curiosity, and she felt secretly glad that Mrs. Lynde was going to solve the mystery. She and Marilla waited expectantly for that good lady's return, but waited in vain. Mrs. Lynde did not revisit Green Gables that night. Davy, arriving home at nine o'clock from the Bolter Place, explained why. I met Mrs. Lynde and some strange woman in the hollow, he said, and gracious how they were talking both at once! Mrs. Lynde said to tell you she was sorry it was too late to call to-night. And I'm awful hungry. We had tea at Melty's at four, and I think Mrs. Bolter is real mean. She didn't give us any preserves or cake, and even the bread was scource. Davy, when you go visiting, you must never criticize anything you are given to eat, said Anne solemnly. It is very bad manners. All right. I'll only think it, said Davy cheerfully.   You can give him some jam on his bread. I know what tea at Levi Bolter's is apt to be. Davy took a slice of bread and jam with a sigh. It's a kind of disappointing world, after all, he remarked. Melty has a cat that takes fits. She's took a fit regular every day for three weeks. Melty says it's awful fun to watch her. I went down to-day on purpose to see her have one, but the mean old thing wouldn't take a fit, and just kept healthy as healthy, though Melty and me hung round all the afternoon and waited. But never mind. Davy brightened up as the insidious comfort of the plum jam stole into his soul. Maybe I'll see her in one some time yet. It doesn't seem likely she'd stop having them all at once when she's been so in the habit of it, does it? This jam's awful nice. Davy had no sorrows that the plum jam could not cure. Sunday proved so rainy that there was no staring abroad, but by Monday everybody had heard some version of the Harrison story. The school buzzed with it, and Davy came home full of information. Marilla, Mr. Harrison has a new wife, well, not exactly new, but they've stopped being married for quite a spell, Milty says. I always supposed people had to keep on being married once they'd begun, but Milty says no. There's ways of stopping if you can't agree. Milty says one way is just to start off and leave your wife, and that's what Mr. Harrison did. Milty says Mr. Harrison left his wife because she throwed things at him. Hard things. And Artie Sloan says it was because she wouldn't let him smoke, and Ned Clay says it was because she never let up scolding him. I wouldn't leave my wife for anything like that. I'd just put my foot down and say, Mrs. Davy, you've just got to do what'll please me, because I'm a man. That'll settle her pretty quick, I guess. But Ned Clay says she left him because he wouldn't scrape his boots at the door and she doesn't blame her. I'm going right over to Mr. Harrison's this minute and see what she's like. Davy soon returned, somewhat cast down. Mrs. Harrison was away. She's gone to Carmody with Mrs. Rachel Lynn to get new paper for the parlor, and Mr. Harrison said to tell Anne to go over and see him, because he wants to have a talk with her, and say the floor is scrubbed and Mr. Harrison is shaved, though there wasn't any preaching yesterday. The Harrison kitchen wore a very unfamiliar look to Anne. The floor was indeed scrubbed to a wonderful pitch of purity, and so was every article of furniture in the room. The stove was polished until she could see her face in it. The walls were whitewashed and the window panes sparkled in the sunlight. By the table sat Mr. Harrison and his working clothes, which on Friday had been noted for sundry wrens and tatters, but which were now neatly patched and brushed. He was sprucely shaved, and what little hair he had was carefully trimmed. "'Sit down, Anne. Sit down,' said Mr. Harrison, in a tone but two degrees removed from that which Avonlea people used at funerals. Emily's gone over to Carmody with Rachel Lynn. She's struck up a lifelong friendship already with Rachel Lynn. Beats all how contrary women are. "'Well, Anne, my easy times are over. All over. It's neatness and tidiness for me for the rest of my natural life, I suppose.' Mr. Harrison did his best to speak dolefully, but an irrepressible twinkle in his eye betrayed him. "'Mr. Harrison, you aren't glad your wife has come back,' cried Anne, shaking her finger at him. You needn't pretend you're not, because I can see it plainly.' Mr. Harrison relaxed into a sheepish smile. "'Well, well, I'm getting used to it,' he conceded. I can't say I was sorry to see Emily. A man really needs some protection in a community like this, where he can't play a game of checkers with a neighbor without being accused of wanting to marry that neighbor's sister and having it put in the paper. "'Nobody would have supposed you went to see Isabella Andrews if you hadn't pretended to be unmarried,' said Anne severely. "'I didn't pretend I was. If anybody had asked me if I was married I'd have said I was. But they just took it for granted. I wasn't anxious to talk about the matter. I was feeling too sore over it. It would have been nuts for Mrs. Rachel Lynn if she had known my wife had left me, wouldn't it now? But some people say that you left her. She started it, Anne. She started it. I'm going to tell you the whole story, for I don't want you to think worse of me than I deserve, nor of Emily, neither. But let's go out on the veranda. Everything is so fearful-need in here that it kind of makes me homesick. I suppose I'll get used to it after a while, but it eases me up to look at the yard. Emily hasn't had time to tidy it up yet.' As soon as they were comfortably seated on the veranda, Mr. Harrison began his tale of woe. I lived in Scottsford, New Brunswick, before I came here, Anne. My sister kept house for me, and she suited me fine. She was just reasonably tidy, and she let me alone and spoiled me, so Emily says. But three years ago she died. Before she died she worried a lot about what was to become of me, and finally she got me to promise I'd get married. She advised me to take Emily's scot because Emily had money of her own, and was a patterned housekeeper. I said, says I, Emily's scot wouldn't look at me. You ask her and cease, says my sister. And just to ease her mind I promised her I would, and I did. And Emily said she'd have me. Never was so surprised in my life, Anne.  I tell you, I thought at first I was in luck. Well, we were married and took a little wedding trip to St. John for a fortnight, and then we went home. We got home at ten o'clock at night, and I'd give you my word, Anne, that in half an hour that woman was at work house cleaning. Oh, I know you're thinking my house needed it. You've got a very expressive face, Anne. Your thoughts just come out on it like print. But it didn't. Not that bad. It had got pretty mixed up while I was keeping bachelor's haul, I admit. But I'd got a woman to come in and clean it before I was married, and there'd been considerable painting and fixing done. I tell you, if you took Emily into a brand new white marble palace, she'd be into the scrubbing as soon as she could get an old dress on. Well, she cleaned house till one o'clock that night, and at four she was up and at it again. And she kept on that way, far as I could see she never stopped. It was scour and sweep and dust everlasting, except on Sundays, and then she was just longing for Monday to begin again. But it was her way of amusing herself, and I could have reconciled myself to it if she'd left me alone. But that she wouldn't do. She'd set out to make me over, but she hadn't caught me young enough. I wasn't allowed to come into the house unless I changed my boots for slippers at the door. I darsen't smoke a pipe for my life unless I went to the barn. And I didn't use good enough grammar. Emily'd been a school teacher in her early life, and she'd never got over it. Then she hated to see me eating with my knife. Well, there it was, pick and nag everlasting. But I suppose, Anne, to be fair, I was cantankerous too. I didn't try to improve as I might have done. I just got cranky and disagreeable when she found fault. I told her one day she hadn't complained of my grammar when I proposed to her. It wasn't an overly tactful thing to say. A woman would forgive a man for beating her sooner than for hinting she was too much pleased to get him. Well, we bickered along like that, and it wasn't exactly pleasant. But we might have got used to each other after a spell if it hadn't been for Ginger. Ginger was the rock we split on at last. Emily didn't like parrots, and she couldn't stand Ginger's profane habits of speech. I was attached to the bird for my brother the sailor's sake. My brother the sailor was a pet of mine when we were little tads, and he'd sent Ginger to me when he was dying. I didn't see any sense in getting worked up over his swearing. There's nothing I hate worse than profanity in a human being, but in a parrot that's just repeating what it's heard with no more understanding of it than I'd have of Chinese allowances might be made. But Emily couldn't see it that way. Women ain't logical. She tried to break Ginger of swearing, but she hadn't any better success that she had in trying to make me stop saying I seen and them things. Seemed as if the more she tried, the worse Ginger got, same as me. Well, things went on like this, both of us getting raspier till the climax came. Emily invited our minister and his wife to tea, and another minister and his wife that was visiting them. I'd promised to put Ginger away in some safe place where nobody would hear him. Emily wouldn't touch his cage with a ten-foot pole, and I meant to do it, for I didn't want the ministers to hear anything unpleasant in my house. But it slipped my mind. Emily was worrying me so much about clean collars and grammar that it wasn't any wonder. And I never thought of that poor parrot till we sat down to tea. Just as minister number one was in the very middle of saying grace, Ginger, who was on the veranda outside the dining-room window, lifted up his voice. The gobbler had come into view in the yard, and the sight of a gobbler always had an unwholesome effect on Ginger. He surpassed himself that time. You can smile, Anne, and I don't deny I've chuckled some over it since myself. But at the time I felt almost as much mortified as Emily. I went out and carried Ginger to the barn. I can't say I enjoyed the meal. I knew by the look of Emily that there was trouble brewing for Ginger and James A. When the folks went away I started for the cow-pasture, and on the way I did some thinking. I felt sorry for Emily, and kind of fancied I hadn't been so thoughtful of her as I might. And besides, I wondered if the ministers would think that Ginger had learned his vocabulary from me. The long and short of it was, I decided that Ginger would have to be mercifully disposed of, and when I drove the cow's home I went in to tell Emily so. But there was no Emily, and there was a letter on the table. Just according to the rule in story books, Emily writ that I'd have to choose between her and Ginger. She'd gone back to her own house, and there she would stay till I went and told her I'd got rid of that parrot. I was all riled up, Anne, and I said she might stay till doomsday if she waited for that. And I stuck to it. I packed up her belongings and sent them after her. It made an awful lot of talk. Scottsford was pretty near as bad as Avonlea for gossip. And everybody sympathized with Emily. It kept me all cross and cantankerous, and I saw I'd have to get out or I'd never have any peace. I concluded I'd come to the island. I'd been here when I was a boy, and I liked it. But Emily had always said she wouldn't live in a place where folks were scared to walk out after dark for fear they'd fall off the edge. So just to be contrary, I moved over here. And that's all there is to it. I hadn't ever heard a word from or about Emily till I come home from the backfield Saturday and found her scrubbing the floor, but with the first decent dinner I'd had since she left me already on the table. She told me to eat first, and then we'd talk, by which I concluded that Emily had learned some lessons about getting along with a man. So she's here, and she's going to stay, seeing that Ginger's dead and the island some bigger than she thought. There's Mrs. Lynde and her now. No, don't go, Anne.  She took quite a notion to you Saturday, wanted to know who that handsome red-haired girl was at the next house. Mrs. Harrison welcomed Anne radiantly and insisted on her staying to tea. James A. has been telling me all about you and how kind you've been, making cakes and things for him, she said. I want to get acquainted with all my new neighbours just as soon as possible. Mrs. Lynde is a lovely woman, isn't she? So friendly. When Anne went home in the sweet June dusk, Mrs. Harrison went with her across the fields where the fireflies were lighting their starry lamps. I suppose, said Mrs. Harrison confidentially, that James A. has told you our story? Yes. Then I needn't tell it, for James A. is a just ban, and he would tell the truth. The blame was far from being all on his side. I can see that now. I wasn't back in my own house an hour before I wished I hadn't been so hasty, but I wouldn't give in. I see now that I expected too much of a man. And I was real foolish to mind his bad grammar. It doesn't matter if a man does use bad grammar, so long as he is a good provider and doesn't go poking round the pantry to see how much sugar you've used in a week. I feel that James A. and I are going to be real happy now. I wish I knew who observer is, so that I could thank him. I owe him a real debt of gratitude. Anne kept her own counsel, and Mrs. Harrison never knew that her gratitude found its way to its object. Anne felt rather bewildered over the far-reaching consequences of those foolish notes. They had reconciled a man to his wife, and made the reputation of a prophet. Mrs. Lynde was in the Green Gables kitchen. She had been telling the whole story to Marilla. Well, and how do you like Mrs. Harrison? She asked Anne. Very much.  That's exactly what she is, said Mrs. Rachel with emphasis. And as I've just been saying to Marilla, I think we ought all to overlook Mr. Harrison's peculiarities for her sake, and try to make her feel at home here. That's what. Well, I must get back. Thomas will be wearying for me. I get out a little since Eliza came, and he seemed a lot better these past few days. But I never like to be long away from him. I hear Gilbert Blythe has resigned from White Sands. He'll be off to college in the fall, I suppose. Mrs. Rachel looked sharply at Anne, but Anne was bending over a sleepy Davey nodding off on the sofa, and nothing was to be read in her face. She carried Davey away, her oval, girlish cheek pressed against his yellow, curly head. As they went up the stairs Davey flung a tired arm about Anne's neck, and gave her a warm hug at a sticky kiss. You're awful nice, Anne. Melty Bolter wrote on his slate today and showed it to Jenny's Sloan. Roses red and violets blue, sugar sweet, and so are you. And that spresses my feelings for you exactly, Anne. End of Chapter 25 Chapter 26 of Anne of Avonlea by Lucy Maud Montgomery Read for LibriVox.org by Karen Savage in March 2008. Chapter 26 Around the Bend Thomas Lind faded out of life as quietly and unobtrusively as he had lived it. His wife was a tender, patient, unwearyed nurse. Sometimes Rachel had been a little hard on her Thomas in health, when his slowness or meekness had provoked her. But when he became ill no voice could be lower, no hand more gently skillful, no vitual more uncomplaining. You've been a good wife to me, Rachel. He once said simply when she was sitting by him in the dusk, holding his thin, blanched old hand in her work-hardened one. A good wife. I'm sorry I ain't leaving you better off, but the children will look after you. They're all smart, capable children, just like their mother.  A good woman. He had fallen asleep then. And the next morning, just as the white dawn was creeping up over the pointed furs in the hollow, Marillo went softly into the east gable and wakened Anne. Anne? Thomas Lynde is gone. Their hired boy just brought the word. I'm going right down to Rachel. On the day after Thomas Lynde's funeral Marillo went about green gables with a strangely preoccupied air. Occasionally she looked at Anne, seemed on the point of saying something, then shook her head and buttoned up her mouth. After tea she went down to see Mrs. Rachel, and when she returned she went to the east gable where Anne was correcting school exercises. How is Mrs. Lynde tonight? asked the latter. She's feeling calmer and more composed, answered Marillo, sitting down on Anne's bed, a proceeding which betokened some unusual mental excitement, for in Marillo's coat of household ethics, to sit on a bed after it was made up was an unpardonable offense. But she's very lonely, and lies I had to go home to-day. Her son isn't well, and she felt she couldn't stay any longer. When I finished these exercises I'll run down and chat a while with Mrs. Lynde, said Anne. I had intended to study some Latin composition tonight, but it can wait. I suppose Gilbert Blythe is going to college in the fall, said Marilla jerkily. How would you like to go to, Anne? Anne looked up in astonishment. I would like it, of course, Marilla, but it isn't possible. I guess it can be made possible. I've always felt that you should go. I've never felt easy to think you were giving it all up on my account. But, Marilla, I've never been sorry for a moment that I stayed home. I've been so happy. All these past two years have been just delightful. Oh, yes, I know you've been contented enough. But that isn't the question exactly. You want to go on with your education. You've saved enough to put you through one year at Redmond, and the money the stock brought in will do for another year, and there's scholarships and things you might win. Yes, but I can't, Marilla. Your eyes are better, of course, but I can't leave you alone with the twins. They need so much looking after. I won't be alone with them. That's what I meant to discuss with you. I had a long talk with Rachel tonight. Anne she's feeling dreadful bad over a good many things. She's not left very well off. It seems they mortgaged the farm eight years ago to give the youngest boy a start when he went west, and they've never been able to pay much more than the interest since. And then, of course, Thomas' illness has cost a good deal, one way or another. The farm will have to be sold, and Rachel thinks there'll be hardly anything left after the bills are settled. She says she'll have to go and live with Eliza, and it's breaking her heart to think of leaving Avonlea. A woman of her age doesn't make new friends and interests easy. And Anne, as she talked about it, the thought came to me that I would ask her to come and live with me, but I thought I ought to talk it over with you first before I said anything to her. If I had Rachel living with me, you could go to college. How do you feel about it? I feel as if somebody had handed me the moon, and I didn't know exactly what to do with it, said Anne daisedly. But as for asking Mrs. Linda come here, that is for you to decide, Marilla. Do you think—are you sure you would like it? Mrs. Linda's a good woman and a kind neighbor, but—but she's got her faults, you mean to say. Well, she has, of course, but I think I'd rather put up with worse faults than see Rachel go away from Avonlea. I'd miss her terrible. She's the only close friend I've got here and I'd be lost without her. We've been neighbors for forty-five years and we've never had a quarrel, though we came rather near at that time you fluid, Mrs. Rachel, for calling you homely and red-haired. Do you remember, Anne? I should think I do, said Anne, ruefully. People don't forget things like that. How I hated poor Mrs. Rachel at that moment. And then that apology you made her—well, you were a handful in all conscience, Anne. I did feel so puzzled and bewildered how to manage you. Matthew understood you better. Matthew understood everything, said Anne softly as she always spoke of him. Well I think it could be managed so that Rachel and I wouldn't clash at all. It always seemed to me that the reason two women can't get along in one house is that they try to share the same kitchen and get in each other's way. Now if Rachel came here she could have the North Gable for her bedroom and the spare room for a kitchen as well as not, for we don't really need a spare room at all. She could put her stove there and what furniture she wanted to keep and be real comfortable and independent. She'll have enough to live on, of course. Her children will see to that. So all I'd be giving her would be house-room. Yes, Anne, as far as I'm concerned I'd like it. Then ask her, said Anne promptly. I'd be very sorry myself to see Mrs. Rachel go away. And if she comes—continued Marilla—you can go to college as well as not. She'll be company for me and she'll do for the twins what I can't do, so there's no reason in the world why you shouldn't go. Anne had a long meditation at her window that night. Joy and regret struggled together in her heart. She had come at last, suddenly and unexpectedly, to the bend in the road, and college was around it, with a hundred rainbow hopes and visions. But Anne realized as well that when she rounded that curve she must leave many sweet things behind. All the little simple duties and interests which had grown so dear to her in the last two years, and which she had glorified into beauty and delight by the enthusiasm she had put into them.  The mere thought of Paul Irving made her wonder if Redmond were such a name to conjure with after all. I've put out a lot of little roots these two years, Anne told the moon, and when I'm pulled up they're going to hurt a great deal. But it's best to go, I think, and as Marilla says there's no good reason why I shouldn't. I must get out all my ambitions and dust them. Anne sent in her resignation the next day, and Mrs. Rachel, after a heart-to-heart talk with Marilla, gratefully accepted the offer of a home at Green Gables. She elected to remain in her own house for the summer, however. The farm was not to be sold until the fall and there were many arrangements to be made. I certainly never thought of living as far off the road as Green Gables, sighed Mrs. Rachel to herself. But really, Green Gables doesn't seem as out of the world as it used to do. Anne has lots of company, and the twins make it real lively. And anyhow, I'd rather live at the bottom of a well than leave Avonlein. These two decisions, being noise to broad, speedily ousted the arrival of Mrs. Harrison in popular gossip. Sage heads were shaken of Marilla Cuthbert's rash step in asking Mrs. Rachel to live with her. People opined that they wouldn't get on together. They were both too fond of their own way, and many doleful predictions were made, none of which disturbed the parties in question at all. They had come to a clear and distinct understanding of the respective duties and rights of their new arrangements, and meant to abide by them. I won't meddle with you nor you with me, Mrs. Rachel had said decisively. And as for the twins, I'll be glad to do all I can for them, but I won't undertake to answer Davy's questions. That's what. I'm not an encyclopedia. Neither am I a Philadelphia lawyer. You'll miss Anne for that." Sometimes Anne's answers were about as queer as Davy's questions, said Marilla Dryley. The twins will miss her, and no mistake. But her future can't be sacrificed to Davy's thirst for information. When he asks questions I can't answer, I'll just tell him children should be seen and not heard. That was how I was brought up, and I don't know about what it was just as good a way as all these new fangled notions for training children. While Anne's methods seem to have worked fairly well with Davy, said Mrs. Lynn smilingly, he is a reformed character, that's what. He isn't a bad little soul, conceded Marilla. I never expected to get as fond of those children as I have. Davy gets round you somehow, and Dora is a lovely child, although she is—kind of—well, kind of—monotonous? Exactly, supplied Mrs. Rachel. Like a book where every page is the same, that's what. Dora will make a good, reliable woman, but she'll never set the pond on fire. Well, that sort of folks are comfortable to have around, even if they're not as interesting as the other kind. Gilbert Blythe was probably the only person to whom the news of Anne's resignation brought unmixed pleasure. Her pupils looked upon it as a sheer catastrophe. Annette Bell had hysterics when she went home. Anthony Pye fought two pitched and unprovoked battles with other boys by way of relieving his feelings. Barbara Shaw cried all night. Paul Irving defiantly told his grandmother that she needn't expect him to eat any porridge for a week. I can't do it, Grandma, he said. I don't really know if I can eat anything. I feel as if there was a dreadful lump in my throat. I'd have cried coming home from school if Jake D'Nel hadn't been watching me. I believe I will cry after I go to bed. It wouldn't show on my eyes to-morrow, would it? And it would be such a relief. But anyway, I can't eat porridge. I'm going to need all my strength of mind to bear up against this, Grandma, and I won't have any left to grapple with porridge. Oh, Grandma, I don't know what I'll do when my beautiful teacher goes away. Milty Bolcher says he bets Jane Andrews will get the school. I suppose Miss Andrews is very nice, but I know she won't understand things like Miss Shirley. Diana also took a very pessimistic view of affairs. It'll be horribly lonesome here next