WHAT a splendid day!” said Anne, drawing a long breath. “Isn’t it good

just to be alive on a day like this? I pity the people who aren’t born

yet for missing it. They may have good days, of course, but they can

never have this one. And it’s splendider still to have such a lovely way

to go to school by, isn’t it?”

“It’s a lot nicer than going round by the road; that is so dusty

and hot,” said Diana practically, peeping into her dinner basket and

mentally calculating if the three juicy, toothsome, raspberry tarts

reposing there were divided among ten girls how many bites each girl

would have.

The little girls of Avonlea school always pooled their lunches, and

to eat three raspberry tarts all alone or even to share them only with

one’s best chum would have forever and ever branded as “awful mean” the

girl who did it. And yet, when the tarts were divided among ten girls

you just got enough to tantalize you.

The way Anne and Diana went to school _was_ a pretty one. Anne thought

those walks to and from school with Diana couldn’t be improved upon

even by imagination. Going around by the main road would have been so

unromantic; but to go by Lover’s Lane and Willowmere and Violet Vale and

the Birch Path was romantic, if ever anything was.

Lover’s Lane opened out below the orchard at Green Gables and stretched

far up into the woods to the end of the Cuthbert farm. It was the way by

which the cows were taken to the back pasture and the wood hauled home

in winter. Anne had named it Lover’s Lane before she had been a month at

Green Gables.

“Not that lovers ever really walk there,” she explained to Marilla,

“but Diana and I are reading a perfectly magnificent book and there’s a

Lover’s Lane in it. So we want to have one, too. And it’s a very pretty

name, don’t you think? So romantic! We can’t imagine the lovers into it,

you know. I like that lane because you can think out loud there without

people calling you crazy.”

Anne, starting out alone in the morning, went down Lover’s Lane as far

as the brook. Here Diana met her, and the two little girls went on

up the lane under the leafy arch of maples--“maples are such sociable

trees,” said Anne; “they’re always rustling and whispering to

you”--until they came to a rustic bridge. Then they left the lane

and walked through Mr. Barry’s back field and past Willowmere. Beyond

Willowmere came Violet Vale--a little green dimple in the shadow of Mr.

Andrew Bell’s big woods. “Of course there are no violets there now,”

Anne told Marilla, “but Diana says there are millions of them in spring.

Oh, Marilla, can’t you just imagine you see them? It actually takes away

my breath. I named it Violet Vale. Diana says she never saw the beat

of me for hitting on fancy names for places. It’s nice to be clever at

something, isn’t it? But Diana named the Birch Path. She wanted to, so

I let her; but I’m sure I could have found something more poetical than

plain Birch Path. Anybody can think of a name like that. But the Birch

Path is one of the prettiest places in the world, Marilla.”

It was. Other people besides Anne thought so when they stumbled on it.

It was a little narrow, twisting path, winding down over a long hill

straight through Mr. Bell’s woods, where the light came down sifted

through so many emerald screens that it was as flawless as the heart

of a diamond. It was fringed in all its length with slim young birches,

white stemmed and lissom boughed; ferns and starflowers and wild

lilies-of-the-valley and scarlet tufts of pigeonberries grew thickly

along it; and always there was a delightful spiciness in the air and

music of bird calls and the murmur and laugh of wood winds in the trees

overhead. Now and then you might see a rabbit skipping across the road

if you were quiet--which, with Anne and Diana, happened about once in

a blue moon. Down in the valley the path came out to the main road and

then it was just up the spruce hill to the school.

The Avonlea school was a whitewashed building, low in the eaves and

wide in the windows, furnished inside with comfortable substantial

old-fashioned desks that opened and shut, and were carved all over their

lids with the initials and hieroglyphics of three generations of school

children. The schoolhouse was set back from the road and behind it was

a dusky fir wood and a brook where all the children put their bottles of

milk in the morning to keep cool and sweet until dinner hour.

Marilla had seen Anne start off to school on the first day of September

with many secret misgivings. Anne was such an odd girl. How would she

get on with the other children? And how on earth would she ever manage

to hold her tongue during school hours?

Things went better than Marilla feared, however. Anne came home that

evening in high spirits.

“I think I’m going to like school here,” she announced. “I don’t think

much of the master, though. He’s all the time curling his mustache

and making eyes at Prissy Andrews. Prissy is grown up, you know. She’s

sixteen and she’s studying for the entrance examination into Queen’s

Academy at Charlottetown next year. Tillie Boulter says the master is

_dead gone_ on her. She’s got a beautiful complexion and curly brown hair

and she does it up so elegantly. She sits in the long seat at the back

and he sits there, too, most of the time--to explain her lessons, he

says. But Ruby Gillis says she saw him writing something on her slate

and when Prissy read it she blushed as red as a beet and giggled; and

Ruby Gillis says she doesn’t believe it had anything to do with the

lesson.”

“Anne Shirley, don’t let me hear you talking about your teacher in that

way again,” said Marilla sharply. “You don’t go to school to criticize

the master. I guess he can teach _you_ something, and it’s your business

to learn. And I want you to understand right off that you are not to

come home telling tales about him. That is something I won’t encourage.

I hope you were a good girl.”

“Indeed I was,” said Anne comfortably. “It wasn’t so hard as you might

imagine, either. I sit with Diana. Our seat is right by the window and

we can look down to the Lake of Shining Waters. There are a lot of nice

girls in school and we had scrumptious fun playing at dinnertime. It’s

so nice to have a lot of little girls to play with. But of course I like

Diana best and always will. I _adore_ Diana. I’m dreadfully far behind the

others. They’re all in the fifth book and I’m only in the fourth. I feel

that it’s kind of a disgrace. But there’s not one of them has such an

imagination as I have and I soon found that out. We had reading and

geography and Canadian history and dictation today. Mr. Phillips said my

spelling was disgraceful and he held up my slate so that everybody could

see it, all marked over. I felt so mortified, Marilla; he might have

been politer to a stranger, I think. Ruby Gillis gave me an apple and

Sophia Sloane lent me a lovely pink card with ‘May I see you home?’ on

it. I’m to give it back to her tomorrow. And Tillie Boulter let me wear

her bead ring all the afternoon. Can I have some of those pearl beads

off the old pincushion in the garret to make myself a ring? And oh,

Marilla, Jane Andrews told me that Minnie MacPherson told her that she

heard Prissy Andrews tell Sara Gillis that I had a very pretty nose.

Marilla, that is the first compliment I have ever had in my life and you

can’t imagine what a strange feeling it gave me. Marilla, have I really

a pretty nose? I know you’ll tell me the truth.”

“Your nose is well enough,” said Marilla shortly. Secretly she thought

Anne’s nose was a remarkable pretty one; but she had no intention of

telling her so.

That was three weeks ago and all had gone smoothly so far. And now, this

crisp September morning, Anne and Diana were tripping blithely down the

Birch Path, two of the happiest little girls in Avonlea.

“I guess Gilbert Blythe will be in school today,” said Diana. “He’s been

visiting his cousins over in New Brunswick all summer and he only came

home Saturday night. He’s _aw’fly_ handsome, Anne. And he teases the

girls something terrible. He just torments our lives out.”

Diana’s voice indicated that she rather liked having her life tormented

out than not.

“Gilbert Blythe?” said Anne. “Isn’t his name that’s written up on the

porch wall with Julia Bell’s and a big ‘Take Notice’ over them?”

“Yes,” said Diana, tossing her head, “but I’m sure he doesn’t like Julia

Bell so very much. I’ve heard him say he studied the multiplication

table by her freckles.”

“Oh, don’t speak about freckles to me,” implored Anne. “It isn’t

delicate when I’ve got so many. But I do think that writing take-notices

up on the wall about the boys and girls is the silliest ever. I should

just like to see anybody dare to write my name up with a boy’s. Not, of

course,” she hastened to add, “that anybody would.”

Anne sighed. She didn’t want her name written up. But it was a little

humiliating to know that there was no danger of it.

“Nonsense,” said Diana, whose black eyes and glossy tresses had played

such havoc with the hearts of Avonlea schoolboys that her name figured

on the porch walls in half a dozen take-notices. “It’s only meant as

a joke. And don’t you be too sure your name won’t ever be written up.

Charlie Sloane is _dead gone_ on you. He told his mother--his _mother_,

mind you--that you were the smartest girl in school. That’s better than

being good-looking.”

“No, it isn’t,” said Anne, feminine to the core. “I’d rather be pretty

than clever. And I hate Charlie Sloane, I can’t bear a boy with goggle

eyes. If anyone wrote my name up with his I’d _never_ get over it, Diana

Barry. But it _is_ nice to keep head of your class.”

“You’ll have Gilbert in your class after this,” said Diana, “and he’s

used to being head of his class, I can tell you. He’s only in the fourth

book although he’s nearly fourteen. Four years ago his father was sick

and had to go out to Alberta for his health and Gilbert went with him.

They were there three years and Gil didn’t go to school hardly any

until they came back. You won’t find it so easy to keep head after this,

Anne.”

“I’m glad,” said Anne quickly. “I couldn’t really feel proud of keeping

head of little boys and girls of just nine or ten. I got up yesterday

spelling ‘ebullition.’ Josie Pye was head and, mind you, she peeped

in her book. Mr. Phillips didn’t see her--he was looking at Prissy

Andrews--but I did. I just swept her a look of freezing scorn and she

got as red as a beet and spelled it wrong after all.”

“Those Pye girls are cheats all round,” said Diana indignantly, as they

climbed the fence of the main road. “Gertie Pye actually went and put

her milk bottle in my place in the brook yesterday. Did you ever? I

don’t speak to her now.”

When Mr. Phillips was in the back of the room hearing Prissy Andrews’s

Latin, Diana whispered to Anne, “That’s Gilbert Blythe sitting right

across the aisle from you, Anne. Just look at him and see if you don’t

think he’s handsome.”

Anne looked accordingly. She had a good chance to do so, for the said

Gilbert Blythe was absorbed in stealthily pinning the long yellow braid

of Ruby Gillis, who sat in front of him, to the back of her seat. He

was a tall boy, with curly brown hair, roguish hazel eyes, and a mouth

twisted into a teasing smile. Presently Ruby Gillis started up to take

a sum to the master; she fell back into her seat with a little shriek,

believing that her hair was pulled out by the roots. Everybody looked at

her and Mr. Phillips glared so sternly that Ruby began to cry. Gilbert

had whisked the pin out of sight and was studying his history with the

soberest face in the world; but when the commotion subsided he looked at

Anne and winked with inexpressible drollery.

“I think your Gilbert Blythe _is_ handsome,” confided Anne to Diana,

“but I think he’s very bold. It isn’t good manners to wink at a strange

girl.”

But it was not until the afternoon that things really began to happen.

Mr. Phillips was back in the corner explaining a problem in algebra to

Prissy Andrews and the rest of the scholars were doing pretty much as

they pleased eating green apples, whispering, drawing pictures on their

slates, and driving crickets harnessed to strings, up and down aisle.

Gilbert Blythe was trying to make Anne Shirley look at him and failing

utterly, because Anne was at that moment totally oblivious not only

to the very existence of Gilbert Blythe, but of every other scholar in

Avonlea school itself. With her chin propped on her hands and her eyes

fixed on the blue glimpse of the Lake of Shining Waters that the west

window afforded, she was far away in a gorgeous dreamland hearing and

seeing nothing save her own wonderful visions.

Gilbert Blythe wasn’t used to putting himself out to make a girl look

at him and meeting with failure. She _should_ look at him, that red-haired

Shirley girl with the little pointed chin and the big eyes that weren’t

like the eyes of any other girl in Avonlea school.

Gilbert reached across the aisle, picked up the end of Anne’s long red

braid, held it out at arm’s length and said in a piercing whisper:

“Carrots! Carrots!”

Then Anne looked at him with a vengeance!

She did more than look. She sprang to her feet, her bright fancies

fallen into cureless ruin. She flashed one indignant glance at Gilbert

from eyes whose angry sparkle was swiftly quenched in equally angry

tears.

“You mean, hateful boy!” she exclaimed passionately. “How dare you!”

And then--thwack! Anne had brought her slate down on Gilbert’s head and

cracked it--slate not head--clear across.

Avonlea school always enjoyed a scene. This was an especially enjoyable

one. Everybody said “Oh” in horrified delight. Diana gasped. Ruby

Gillis, who was inclined to be hysterical, began to cry. Tommy

Sloane let his team of crickets escape him altogether while he stared

open-mouthed at the tableau.

Mr. Phillips stalked down the aisle and laid his hand heavily on Anne’s

shoulder.

“Anne Shirley, what does this mean?” he said angrily. Anne returned no

answer. It was asking too much of flesh and blood to expect her to tell

before the whole school that she had been called “carrots.” Gilbert it

was who spoke up stoutly.

“It was my fault Mr. Phillips. I teased her.”

Mr. Phillips paid no heed to Gilbert.

“I am sorry to see a pupil of mine displaying such a temper and such

a vindictive spirit,” he said in a solemn tone, as if the mere fact of

being a pupil of his ought to root out all evil passions from the hearts

of small imperfect mortals. “Anne, go and stand on the platform in front

of the blackboard for the rest of the afternoon.”

Anne would have infinitely preferred a whipping to this punishment under

which her sensitive spirit quivered as from a whiplash. With a white,

set face she obeyed. Mr. Phillips took a chalk crayon and wrote on the

blackboard above her head.

“Ann Shirley has a very bad temper. Ann Shirley must learn to control

her temper,” and then read it out loud so that even the primer class,

who couldn’t read writing, should understand it.

Anne stood there the rest of the afternoon with that legend above her.

She did not cry or hang her head. Anger was still too hot in her heart

for that and it sustained her amid all her agony of humiliation. With

resentful eyes and passion-red cheeks she confronted alike Diana’s

sympathetic gaze and Charlie Sloane’s indignant nods and Josie Pye’s

malicious smiles. As for Gilbert Blythe, she would not even look at him.

She would _never_ look at him again! She would never speak to him!!

When school was dismissed Anne marched out with her red head held high.

Gilbert Blythe tried to intercept her at the porch door.

“I’m awfully sorry I made fun of your hair, Anne,” he whispered

contritely. “Honest I am. Don’t be mad for keeps, now.”

Anne swept by disdainfully, without look or sign of hearing. “Oh

how could you, Anne?” breathed Diana as they went down the road half

reproachfully, half admiringly. Diana felt that _she_ could never have

resisted Gilbert’s plea.

“I shall never forgive Gilbert Blythe,” said Anne firmly. “And Mr.

Phillips spelled my name without an e, too. The iron has entered into my

soul, Diana.”

Diana hadn’t the least idea what Anne meant but she understood it was

something terrible.

“You mustn’t mind Gilbert making fun of your hair,” she said soothingly.

“Why, he makes fun of all the girls. He laughs at mine because it’s

so black. He’s called me a crow a dozen times; and I never heard him

apologize for anything before, either.”

“There’s a great deal of difference between being called a crow and

being called carrots,” said Anne with dignity. “Gilbert Blythe has hurt

my feelings _excruciatingly_, Diana.”

It is possible the matter might have blown over without more

excruciation if nothing else had happened. But when things begin to

happen they are apt to keep on.

Avonlea scholars often spent noon hour picking gum in Mr. Bell’s spruce

grove over the hill and across his big pasture field. From there they

could keep an eye on Eben Wright’s house, where the master boarded. When

they saw Mr. Phillips emerging therefrom they ran for the schoolhouse;

but the distance being about three times longer than Mr. Wright’s lane

they were very apt to arrive there, breathless and gasping, some three

minutes too late.

On the following day Mr. Phillips was seized with one of his spasmodic

fits of reform and announced before going home to dinner, that he should

expect to find all the scholars in their seats when he returned. Anyone

who came in late would be punished.

All the boys and some of the girls went to Mr. Bell’s spruce grove as

usual, fully intending to stay only long enough to “pick a chew.” But

spruce groves are seductive and yellow nuts of gum beguiling; they

picked and loitered and strayed; and as usual the first thing that

recalled them to a sense of the flight of time was Jimmy Glover shouting

from the top of a patriarchal old spruce “Master’s coming.”

The girls who were on the ground, started first and managed to reach the

schoolhouse in time but without a second to spare. The boys, who had to

wriggle hastily down from the trees, were later; and Anne, who had not

been picking gum at all but was wandering happily in the far end of the

grove, waist deep among the bracken, singing softly to herself, with a

wreath of rice lilies on her hair as if she were some wild divinity

of the shadowy places, was latest of all. Anne could run like a deer,

however; run she did with the impish result that she overtook the boys

at the door and was swept into the schoolhouse among them just as Mr.

Phillips was in the act of hanging up his hat.

Mr. Phillips’s brief reforming energy was over; he didn’t want the

bother of punishing a dozen pupils; but it was necessary to do something

to save his word, so he looked about for a scapegoat and found it

in Anne, who had dropped into her seat, gasping for breath, with a

forgotten lily wreath hanging askew over one ear and giving her a

particularly rakish and disheveled appearance.

“Anne Shirley, since you seem to be so fond of the boys’ company we

shall indulge your taste for it this afternoon,” he said sarcastically.

“Take those flowers out of your hair and sit with Gilbert Blythe.”

The other boys snickered. Diana, turning pale with pity, plucked the

wreath from Anne’s hair and squeezed her hand. Anne stared at the master

as if turned to stone.

“Did you hear what I said, Anne?” queried Mr. Phillips sternly.

“Yes, sir,” said Anne slowly “but I didn’t suppose you really meant it.”

“I assure you I did”--still with the sarcastic inflection which all the

children, and Anne especially, hated. It flicked on the raw. “Obey me at

once.”

For a moment Anne looked as if she meant to disobey. Then, realizing

that there was no help for it, she rose haughtily, stepped across the

aisle, sat down beside Gilbert Blythe, and buried her face in her arms

on the desk. Ruby Gillis, who got a glimpse of it as it went down,

told the others going home from school that she’d “acksually never seen

anything like it--it was so white, with awful little red spots in it.”

To Anne, this was as the end of all things. It was bad enough to be

singled out for punishment from among a dozen equally guilty ones; it

was worse still to be sent to sit with a boy, but that that boy should

be Gilbert Blythe was heaping insult on injury to a degree utterly

unbearable. Anne felt that she could not bear it and it would be of

no use to try. Her whole being seethed with shame and anger and

humiliation.

At first the other scholars looked and whispered and giggled and nudged.

But as Anne never lifted her head and as Gilbert worked fractions as if

his whole soul was absorbed in them and them only, they soon returned

to their own tasks and Anne was forgotten. When Mr. Phillips called the

history class out Anne should have gone, but Anne did not move, and

Mr. Phillips, who had been writing some verses “To Priscilla” before he

called the class, was thinking about an obstinate rhyme still and never

missed her. Once, when nobody was looking, Gilbert took from his desk

a little pink candy heart with a gold motto on it, “You are sweet,” and

slipped it under the curve of Anne’s arm. Whereupon Anne arose, took the

pink heart gingerly between the tips of her fingers, dropped it on the

floor, ground it to powder beneath her heel, and resumed her position

without deigning to bestow a glance on Gilbert.

When school went out Anne marched to her desk, ostentatiously took out

everything therein, books and writing tablet, pen and ink, testament and

arithmetic, and piled them neatly on her cracked slate.

“What are you taking all those things home for, Anne?” Diana wanted to

know, as soon as they were out on the road. She had not dared to ask the

question before.

“I am not coming back to school any more,” said Anne. Diana gasped and

stared at Anne to see if she meant it.

“Will Marilla let you stay home?” she asked.

“She’ll have to,” said Anne. “I’ll _never_ go to school to that man

again.”

“Oh, Anne!” Diana looked as if she were ready to cry. “I do think you’re

mean. What shall I do? Mr. Phillips will make me sit with that horrid

Gertie Pye--I know he will because she is sitting alone. Do come back,

Anne.”

“I’d do almost anything in the world for you, Diana,” said Anne sadly.

“I’d let myself be torn limb from limb if it would do you any good. But

I can’t do this, so please don’t ask it. You harrow up my very soul.”

“Just think of all the fun you will miss,” mourned Diana. “We are going

to build the loveliest new house down by the brook; and we’ll be playing

ball next week and you’ve never played ball, Anne. It’s tremendously

exciting. And we’re going to learn a new song--Jane Andrews is

practicing it up now; and Alice Andrews is going to bring a new Pansy

book next week and we’re all going to read it out loud, chapter about,

down by the brook. And you know you are so fond of reading out loud,

Anne.”

Nothing moved Anne in the least. Her mind was made up. She would not go

to school to Mr. Phillips again; she told Marilla so when she got home.

“Nonsense,” said Marilla.

“It isn’t nonsense at all,” said Anne, gazing at Marilla with solemn,

reproachful eyes. “Don’t you understand, Marilla? I’ve been insulted.”

“Insulted fiddlesticks! You’ll go to school tomorrow as usual.”

“Oh, no.” Anne shook her head gently. “I’m not going back, Marilla. I’ll

learn my lessons at home and I’ll be as good as I can be and hold my

tongue all the time if it’s possible at all. But I will not go back to

school, I assure you.”

Marilla saw something remarkably like unyielding stubbornness looking

out of Anne’s small face. She understood that she would have trouble in

overcoming it; but she resolved wisely to say nothing more just then.

“I’ll run down and see Rachel about it this evening,” she thought.

“There’s no use reasoning with Anne now. She’s too worked up and I’ve

an idea she can be awful stubborn if she takes the notion. Far as I can

make out from her story, Mr. Phillips has been carrying matters with

a rather high hand. But it would never do to say so to her. I’ll just

talk it over with Rachel. She’s sent ten children to school and she

ought to know something about it. She’ll have heard the whole story,

too, by this time.”

Marilla found Mrs. Lynde knitting quilts as industriously and cheerfully

as usual.

“I suppose you know what I’ve come about,” she said, a little

shamefacedly.

Mrs. Rachel nodded.

“About Anne’s fuss in school, I reckon,” she said. “Tillie Boulter was

in on her way home from school and told me about it.”

“I don’t know what to do with her,” said Marilla. “She declares she

won’t go back to school. I never saw a child so worked up. I’ve been

expecting trouble ever since she started to school. I knew things were

going too smooth to last. She’s so high strung. What would you advise,

Rachel?”

“Well, since you’ve asked my advice, Marilla,” said Mrs. Lynde

amiably--Mrs. Lynde dearly loved to be asked for advice--“I’d just

humor her a little at first, that’s what I’d do. It’s my belief that

Mr. Phillips was in the wrong. Of course, it doesn’t do to say so to the

children, you know. And of course he did right to punish her yesterday

for giving way to temper. But today it was different. The others who

were late should have been punished as well as Anne, that’s what. And I

don’t believe in making the girls sit with the boys for punishment. It

isn’t modest. Tillie Boulter was real indignant. She took Anne’s part

right through and said all the scholars did too. Anne seems real popular

among them, somehow. I never thought she’d take with them so well.”

“Then you really think I’d better let her stay home,” said Marilla in

amazement.

“Yes. That is I wouldn’t say school to her again until she said it

herself. Depend upon it, Marilla, she’ll cool off in a week or so and

be ready enough to go back of her own accord, that’s what, while, if

you were to make her go back right off, dear knows what freak or tantrum

she’d take next and make more trouble than ever. The less fuss made the

better, in my opinion. She won’t miss much by not going to school, as

far as _that_ goes. Mr. Phillips isn’t any good at all as a teacher. The

order he keeps is scandalous, that’s what, and he neglects the young

fry and puts all his time on those big scholars he’s getting ready for

Queen’s. He’d never have got the school for another year if his uncle

hadn’t been a trustee--_the_ trustee, for he just leads the other two

around by the nose, that’s what. I declare, I don’t know what education

in this Island is coming to.”

Mrs. Rachel shook her head, as much as to say if she were only at the

head of the educational system of the Province things would be much

better managed.

Marilla took Mrs. Rachel’s advice and not another word was said to Anne

about going back to school. She learned her lessons at home, did her

chores, and played with Diana in the chilly purple autumn twilights;

but when she met Gilbert Blythe on the road or encountered him in

Sunday-school she passed him by with an icy contempt that was no whit

thawed by his evident desire to appease her. Even Diana’s efforts as

a peacemaker were of no avail. Anne had evidently made up her mind to

hate Gilbert Blythe to the end of life.

As much as she hated Gilbert, however, did she love Diana, with all the

love of her passionate little heart, equally intense in its likes and

dislikes. One evening Marilla, coming in from the orchard with a basket

of apples, found Anne sitting along by the east window in the twilight,

crying bitterly.

“Whatever’s the matter now, Anne?” she asked.

“It’s about Diana,” sobbed Anne luxuriously. “I love Diana so, Marilla.

I cannot ever live without her. But I know very well when we grow up

that Diana will get married and go away and leave me. And oh, what shall

I do? I hate her husband--I just hate him furiously. I’ve been imagining

it all out--the wedding and everything--Diana dressed in snowy garments,

with a veil, and looking as beautiful and regal as a queen; and me the

bridesmaid, with a lovely dress too, and puffed sleeves, but with a

breaking heart hid beneath my smiling face. And then bidding Diana

goodbye-e-e--” Here Anne broke down entirely and wept with increasing

bitterness.

Marilla turned quickly away to hide her twitching face; but it was no

use; she collapsed on the nearest chair and burst into such a hearty and

unusual peal of laughter that Matthew, crossing the yard outside, halted

in amazement. When had he heard Marilla laugh like that before?

“Well, Anne Shirley,” said Marilla as soon as she could speak, “if you

must borrow trouble, for pity’s sake borrow it handier home. I should

think you had an imagination, sure enough.”