WITH the end of June came the close of the term and the close of Miss

Stacy’s rule in Avonlea school. Anne and Diana walked home that

evening feeling very sober indeed. Red eyes and damp handkerchiefs bore

convincing testimony to the fact that Miss Stacy’s farewell words must

have been quite as touching as Mr. Phillips’s had been under similar

circumstances three years before. Diana looked back at the schoolhouse

from the foot of the spruce hill and sighed deeply.

“It does seem as if it was the end of everything, doesn’t it?” she said

dismally.

“You oughtn’t to feel half as badly as I do,” said Anne, hunting vainly

for a dry spot on her handkerchief. “You’ll be back again next winter,

but I suppose I’ve left the dear old school forever--if I have good

luck, that is.”

“It won’t be a bit the same. Miss Stacy won’t be there, nor you nor Jane

nor Ruby probably. I shall have to sit all alone, for I couldn’t bear

to have another deskmate after you. Oh, we have had jolly times, haven’t

we, Anne? It’s dreadful to think they’re all over.”

Two big tears rolled down by Diana’s nose.

“If you would stop crying I could,” said Anne imploringly. “Just as

soon as I put away my hanky I see you brimming up and that starts me off

again. As Mrs. Lynde says, ‘If you can’t be cheerful, be as cheerful as

you can.’ After all, I dare say I’ll be back next year. This is one

of the times I _know_ I’m not going to pass. They’re getting alarmingly

frequent.”

“Why, you came out splendidly in the exams Miss Stacy gave.”

“Yes, but those exams didn’t make me nervous. When I think of the real

thing you can’t imagine what a horrid cold fluttery feeling comes round

my heart. And then my number is thirteen and Josie Pye says it’s so

unlucky. I am _not_ superstitious and I know it can make no difference.

But still I wish it wasn’t thirteen.”

“I do wish I was going in with you,” said Diana. “Wouldn’t we have

a perfectly elegant time? But I suppose you’ll have to cram in the

evenings.”

“No; Miss Stacy has made us promise not to open a book at all. She says

it would only tire and confuse us and we are to go out walking and not

think about the exams at all and go to bed early. It’s good advice, but

I expect it will be hard to follow; good advice is apt to be, I think.

Prissy Andrews told me that she sat up half the night every night of her

Entrance week and crammed for dear life; and I had determined to sit up

_at least_ as long as she did. It was so kind of your Aunt Josephine to

ask me to stay at Beechwood while I’m in town.”

“You’ll write to me while you’re in, won’t you?”

“I’ll write Tuesday night and tell you how the first day goes,” promised

Anne.

“I’ll be haunting the post office Wednesday,” vowed Diana.

Anne went to town the following Monday and on Wednesday Diana haunted

the post office, as agreed, and got her letter.

“Dearest Diana” [wrote Anne],

“Here it is Tuesday night and I’m writing this in the library at

Beechwood. Last night I was horribly lonesome all alone in my room and

wished so much you were with me. I couldn’t ‘cram’ because I’d promised

Miss Stacy not to, but it was as hard to keep from opening my history

as it used to be to keep from reading a story before my lessons were

learned.

“This morning Miss Stacy came for me and we went to the Academy, calling

for Jane and Ruby and Josie on our way. Ruby asked me to feel her hands

and they were as cold as ice. Josie said I looked as if I hadn’t slept

a wink and she didn’t believe I was strong enough to stand the grind

of the teacher’s course even if I did get through. There are times and

seasons even yet when I don’t feel that I’ve made any great headway in

learning to like Josie Pye!

“When we reached the Academy there were scores of students there from

all over the Island. The first person we saw was Moody Spurgeon sitting

on the steps and muttering away to himself. Jane asked him what on earth

he was doing and he said he was repeating the multiplication table over

and over to steady his nerves and for pity’s sake not to interrupt

him, because if he stopped for a moment he got frightened and forgot

everything he ever knew, but the multiplication table kept all his facts

firmly in their proper place!

“When we were assigned to our rooms Miss Stacy had to leave us. Jane and

I sat together and Jane was so composed that I envied her. No need of

the multiplication table for good, steady, sensible Jane! I wondered if

I looked as I felt and if they could hear my heart thumping clear

across the room. Then a man came in and began distributing the English

examination sheets. My hands grew cold then and my head fairly whirled

around as I picked it up. Just one awful moment--Diana, I felt exactly

as I did four years ago when I asked Marilla if I might stay at Green

Gables--and then everything cleared up in my mind and my heart began

beating again--I forgot to say that it had stopped altogether!--for I

knew I could do something with _that_ paper anyhow.

“At noon we went home for dinner and then back again for history in

the afternoon. The history was a pretty hard paper and I got dreadfully

mixed up in the dates. Still, I think I did fairly well today. But oh,

Diana, tomorrow the geometry exam comes off and when I think of it

it takes every bit of determination I possess to keep from opening my

Euclid. If I thought the multiplication table would help me any I would

recite it from now till tomorrow morning.

“I went down to see the other girls this evening. On my way I met Moody

Spurgeon wandering distractedly around. He said he knew he had failed in

history and he was born to be a disappointment to his parents and he

was going home on the morning train; and it would be easier to be a

carpenter than a minister, anyhow. I cheered him up and persuaded him to

stay to the end because it would be unfair to Miss Stacy if he didn’t.

Sometimes I have wished I was born a boy, but when I see Moody Spurgeon

I’m always glad I’m a girl and not his sister.

“Ruby was in hysterics when I reached their boardinghouse; she had just

discovered a fearful mistake she had made in her English paper. When

she recovered we went uptown and had an ice cream. How we wished you had

been with us.

“Oh, Diana, if only the geometry examination were over! But there, as

Mrs. Lynde would say, the sun will go on rising and setting whether I

fail in geometry or not. That is true but not especially comforting. I

think I’d rather it didn’t go on if I failed!

“Yours devotedly,

“Anne”

The geometry examination and all the others were over in due time and

Anne arrived home on Friday evening, rather tired but with an air of

chastened triumph about her. Diana was over at Green Gables when she

arrived and they met as if they had been parted for years.

“You old darling, it’s perfectly splendid to see you back again. It

seems like an age since you went to town and oh, Anne, how did you get

along?”

“Pretty well, I think, in everything but the geometry. I don’t know

whether I passed in it or not and I have a creepy, crawly presentiment

that I didn’t. Oh, how good it is to be back! Green Gables is the

dearest, loveliest spot in the world.”

“How did the others do?”

“The girls say they know they didn’t pass, but I think they did pretty

well. Josie says the geometry was so easy a child of ten could do it!

Moody Spurgeon still thinks he failed in history and Charlie says he

failed in algebra. But we don’t really know anything about it and won’t

until the pass list is out. That won’t be for a fortnight. Fancy living

a fortnight in such suspense! I wish I could go to sleep and never wake

up until it is over.”

Diana knew it would be useless to ask how Gilbert Blythe had fared, so

she merely said:

“Oh, you’ll pass all right. Don’t worry.”

“I’d rather not pass at all than not come out pretty well up on the

list,” flashed Anne, by which she meant--and Diana knew she meant--that

success would be incomplete and bitter if she did not come out ahead of

Gilbert Blythe.

With this end in view Anne had strained every nerve during the

examinations. So had Gilbert. They had met and passed each other on the

street a dozen times without any sign of recognition and every time Anne

had held her head a little higher and wished a little more earnestly

that she had made friends with Gilbert when he asked her, and vowed a

little more determinedly to surpass him in the examination. She knew

that all Avonlea junior was wondering which would come out first; she

even knew that Jimmy Glover and Ned Wright had a bet on the question

and that Josie Pye had said there was no doubt in the world that Gilbert

would be first; and she felt that her humiliation would be unbearable if

she failed.

But she had another and nobler motive for wishing to do well. She wanted

to “pass high” for the sake of Matthew and Marilla--especially Matthew.

Matthew had declared to her his conviction that she “would beat the

whole Island.” That, Anne felt, was something it would be foolish to

hope for even in the wildest dreams. But she did hope fervently that she

would be among the first ten at least, so that she might see Matthew’s

kindly brown eyes gleam with pride in her achievement. That, she

felt, would be a sweet reward indeed for all her hard work and patient

grubbing among unimaginative equations and conjugations.

At the end of the fortnight Anne took to “haunting” the post office

also, in the distracted company of Jane, Ruby, and Josie, opening the

Charlottetown dailies with shaking hands and cold, sinkaway feelings

as bad as any experienced during the Entrance week. Charlie and Gilbert

were not above doing this too, but Moody Spurgeon stayed resolutely

away.

“I haven’t got the grit to go there and look at a paper in cold blood,”

he told Anne. “I’m just going to wait until somebody comes and tells me

suddenly whether I’ve passed or not.”

When three weeks had gone by without the pass list appearing Anne began

to feel that she really couldn’t stand the strain much longer. Her

appetite failed and her interest in Avonlea doings languished.

Mrs. Lynde wanted to know what else you could expect with a Tory

superintendent of education at the head of affairs, and Matthew, noting

Anne’s paleness and indifference and the lagging steps that bore her

home from the post office every afternoon, began seriously to wonder if

he hadn’t better vote Grit at the next election.

But one evening the news came. Anne was sitting at her open window,

for the time forgetful of the woes of examinations and the cares of the

world, as she drank in the beauty of the summer dusk, sweet-scented with

flower breaths from the garden below and sibilant and rustling from the

stir of poplars. The eastern sky above the firs was flushed faintly pink

from the reflection of the west, and Anne was wondering dreamily if the

spirit of color looked like that, when she saw Diana come flying

down through the firs, over the log bridge, and up the slope, with a

fluttering newspaper in her hand.

Anne sprang to her feet, knowing at once what that paper contained. The

pass list was out! Her head whirled and her heart beat until it hurt

her. She could not move a step. It seemed an hour to her before Diana

came rushing along the hall and burst into the room without even

knocking, so great was her excitement.

“Anne, you’ve passed,” she cried, “passed the _very first_--you and

Gilbert both--you’re ties--but your name is first. Oh, I’m so proud!”

Diana flung the paper on the table and herself on Anne’s bed, utterly

breathless and incapable of further speech. Anne lighted the lamp,

oversetting the match safe and using up half a dozen matches before her

shaking hands could accomplish the task. Then she snatched up the paper.

Yes, she had passed--there was her name at the very top of a list of two

hundred! That moment was worth living for.

“You did just splendidly, Anne,” puffed Diana, recovering sufficiently

to sit up and speak, for Anne, starry eyed and rapt, had not uttered a

word. “Father brought the paper home from Bright River not ten minutes

ago--it came out on the afternoon train, you know, and won’t be here

till tomorrow by mail--and when I saw the pass list I just rushed over

like a wild thing. You’ve all passed, every one of you, Moody Spurgeon

and all, although he’s conditioned in history. Jane and Ruby did pretty

well--they’re halfway up--and so did Charlie. Josie just scraped through

with three marks to spare, but you’ll see she’ll put on as many airs as

if she’d led. Won’t Miss Stacy be delighted? Oh, Anne, what does it feel

like to see your name at the head of a pass list like that? If it were

me I know I’d go crazy with joy. I am pretty near crazy as it is, but

you’re as calm and cool as a spring evening.”

“I’m just dazzled inside,” said Anne. “I want to say a hundred things,

and I can’t find words to say them in. I never dreamed of this--yes, I

did too, just once! I let myself think _once_, ‘What if I should come out

first?’ quakingly, you know, for it seemed so vain and presumptuous to

think I could lead the Island. Excuse me a minute, Diana. I must run

right out to the field to tell Matthew. Then we’ll go up the road and

tell the good news to the others.”

They hurried to the hayfield below the barn where Matthew was coiling

hay, and, as luck would have it, Mrs. Lynde was talking to Marilla at

the lane fence.

“Oh, Matthew,” exclaimed Anne, “I’ve passed and I’m first--or one of the

first! I’m not vain, but I’m thankful.”

“Well now, I always said it,” said Matthew, gazing at the pass list

delightedly. “I knew you could beat them all easy.”

“You’ve done pretty well, I must say, Anne,” said Marilla, trying to

hide her extreme pride in Anne from Mrs. Rachel’s critical eye. But that

good soul said heartily:

“I just guess she has done well, and far be it from me to be backward in

saying it. You’re a credit to your friends, Anne, that’s what, and we’re

all proud of you.”

That night Anne, who had wound up the delightful evening with a serious

little talk with Mrs. Allan at the manse, knelt sweetly by her open

window in a great sheen of moonshine and murmured a prayer of gratitude

and aspiration that came straight from her heart. There was in it

thankfulness for the past and reverent petition for the future; and when

she slept on her white pillow her dreams were as fair and bright and

beautiful as maidenhood might desire.