APDL Eductation Resources/APDL Eductation Resources.iso/text/authors/montgomery/anneisland/CHAP10_19

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Chapter X

Patty's Place


The next evening found them treading resolutely the herring-bone
walk through the tiny garden.  The April wind was filling the
pine trees with its roundelay, and the grove was alive with robins
-- great, plump, saucy fellows, strutting along the paths.
The girls rang rather timidly, and were admitted by a grim and
ancient handmaiden.  The door opened directly into a large
living-room, where by a cheery little fire sat two other ladies,
both of whom were also grim and ancient.  Except that one looked
to be about seventy and the other fifty, there seemed little
difference between them.  Each had amazingly big, light-blue eyes
behind steel-rimmed spectacles; each wore a cap and a gray shawl;
each was knitting without haste and without rest; each rocked
placidly and looked at the girls without speaking; and just
behind each sat a large white china dog, with round green spots
all over it, a green nose and green ears.  Those dogs captured
Anne's fancy on the spot; they seemed like the twin guardian
deities of Patty's Place.

For a few minutes nobody spoke.  The girls were too nervous to
find words, and neither the ancient ladies nor the china dogs
seemed conversationally inclined.  Anne glanced about the room.
What a dear place it was!  Another door opened out of it directly
into the pine grove and the robins came boldly up on the very step.
The floor was spotted with round, braided mats, such as Marilla
made at Green Gables, but which were considered out of date
everywhere else, even in Avonlea.  And yet here they were on
Spofford Avenue!  A big, polished grandfather's clock ticked
loudly and solemnly in a corner.  There were delightful little
cupboards over the mantelpiece, behind whose glass doors gleamed
quaint bits of china.  The walls were hung with old prints and
silhouettes.  In one corner the stairs went up, and at the first
low turn was a long window with an inviting seat.  It was all
just as Anne had known it must be.

By this time the silence had grown too dreadful, and Priscilla
nudged Anne to intimate that she must speak.

"We -- we -- saw by your sign that this house is to let," said Anne
faintly, addressing the older lady, who was evidently Miss Patty Spofford.

"Oh, yes," said Miss Patty.  "I intended to take that sign down today."

"Then -- then we are too late," said Anne sorrowfully.  "You've let it
to some one else?"

"No, but we have decided not to let it at all."

"Oh, I'm so sorry," exclaimed Anne impulsively.  "I love this place so.
I did hope we could have got it."

Then did Miss Patty lay down her knitting, take off her specs,
rub them, put them on again, and for the first time look at Anne
as at a human being.  The other lady followed her example so
perfectly that she might as well have been a reflection in a mirror.

"You LOVE it," said Miss Patty with emphasis.  "Does that mean
that you really LOVE it?  Or that you merely like the looks of it?
The girls nowadays indulge in such exaggerated statements that one
never can tell what they DO mean.  It wasn't so in my young days.
THEN a girl did not say she LOVED turnips, in just the same tone
as she might have said she loved her mother or her Savior."

Anne's conscience bore her up.

"I really do love it," she said gently.  "I've loved it ever since
I saw it last fall.  My two college chums and I want to keep house
next year instead of boarding, so we are looking for a little place
to rent; and when I saw that this house was to let I was so happy."

"If you love it, you can have it," said Miss Patty.  "Maria and I
decided today that we would not let it after all, because we did
not like any of the people who have wanted it.  We don't HAVE to
let it.  We can afford to go to Europe even if we don't let it.
It would help us out, but not for gold will I let my home pass
into the possession of such people as have come here and looked
at it.  YOU are different.  I believe you do love it and will be
good to it.  You can have it."

"If -- if we can afford to pay what you ask for it," hesitated Anne.

Miss Patty named the amount required.  Anne and Priscilla looked
at each other.  Priscilla shook her head.

"I'm afraid we can't afford quite so much," said Anne, choking
back her disappointment.  "You see, we are only college girls
and we are poor."

"What were you thinking you could afford?" demanded Miss Patty,
ceasing not to knit.

Anne named her amount.  Miss Patty nodded gravely.

"That will do.  As I told you, it is not strictly necessary that
we should let it at all.  We are not rich, but we have enough to
go to Europe on.  I have never been in Europe in my life, and never
expected or wanted to go.  But my niece there, Maria Spofford, has
taken a fancy to go.  Now, you know a young person like Maria can't
go globetrotting alone."

"No -- I -- I suppose not," murmured Anne, seeing that Miss Patty
was quite solemnly in earnest.

"Of course not.  So I have to go along to look after her.  I expect to
enjoy it, too; I'm seventy years old, but I'm not tired of living yet.
I daresay I'd have gone to Europe before if the idea had occurred to me.
We shall be away for two years, perhaps three.  We sail in June and we
shall send you the key, and leave all in order for you to take
possession when you choose.  We shall pack away a few things we
prize especially, but all the rest will be left."

"Will you leave the china dogs?" asked Anne timidly.

"Would you like me to?"

"Oh, indeed, yes.  They are delightful."

A pleased expression came into Miss Patty's face.

"I think a great deal of those dogs," she said proudly.  "They are
over a hundred years old, and they have sat on either side of this
fireplace ever since my brother Aaron brought them from London
fifty years ago.  Spofford Avenue was called after my brother Aaron."

"A fine man he was," said Miss Maria, speaking for the first time.
"Ah, you don't see the like of him nowadays."

"He was a good uncle to you, Maria," said Miss Patty, with evident emotion.
"You do well to remember him."

"I shall always remember him," said Miss Maria solemnly.  "I can see him,
this minute, standing there before that fire, with his hands under his
coat-tails, beaming on us."

Miss Maria took out her handkerchief and wiped her eyes; but Miss Patty
came resolutely back from the regions of sentiment to those of business.

"I shall leave the dogs where they are, if you will promise to be
very careful of them," she said.  "Their names are Gog and Magog.
Gog looks to the right and Magog to the left.  And there's just
one thing more.  You don't object, I hope, to this house being
called Patty's Place?"

"No, indeed.  We think that is one of the nicest things about it."

"You have sense, I see," said Miss Patty in a tone of great satisfaction.
"Would you believe it?  All the people who came here to rent the house
wanted to know if they couldn't take the name off the gate during their
occupation of it.  I told them roundly that the name went with the house.
This has been Patty's Place ever since my brother Aaron left it to me in
his will, and Patty's Place it shall remain until I die and Maria dies.
After that happens the next possessor can call it any fool name he likes,"
concluded Miss Patty, much as she might have said, "After that -- the deluge."
"And now, wouldn't you like to go over the house and see it all before we
consider the bargain made?"

Further exploration still further delighted the girls.  Besides the
big living-room, there was a kitchen and a small bedroom downstairs.
Upstairs were three rooms, one large and two small.  Anne took an
especial fancy to one of the small ones, looking out into the big pines,
and hoped it would be hers.  It was papered in pale blue and had a
little, old-timey toilet table with sconces for candles.  There was
a diamond-paned window with a seat under the blue muslin frills that
would be a satisfying spot for studying or dreaming.

"It's all so delicious that I know we are going to wake up and find
it a fleeting vision of the night," said Priscilla as they went away.

"Miss Patty and Miss Maria are hardly such stuff as dreams are
made of," laughed Anne.  "Can you fancy them `globe-trotting' --
especially in those shawls and caps?"

"I suppose they'll take them off when they really begin to trot,"
said Priscilla, "but I know they'll take their knitting with
them everywhere.  They simply couldn't be parted from it.
They will walk about Westminster Abbey and knit, I feel sure.
Meanwhile, Anne, we shall be living in Patty's Place -- and on
Spofford Avenue.  I feel like a millionairess even now."

"I feel like one of the morning stars that sang for joy," said Anne.

Phil Gordon crept into Thirty-eight, St. John's, that night and
flung herself on Anne's bed.

"Girls, dear, I'm tired to death.  I feel like the man without a country --
or was it without a shadow?  I forget which.  Anyway, I've been packing up."

"And I suppose you are worn out because you couldn't decide which
things to pack first, or where to put them," laughed Priscilla.

"E-zackly.  And when I had got everything jammed in somehow, and
my landlady and her maid had both sat on it while I locked it, I
discovered I had packed a whole lot of things I wanted for
Convocation at the very bottom.  I had to unlock the old thing
and poke and dive into it for an hour before I fished out what I
wanted.  I would get hold of something that felt like what I was
looking for, and I'd yank it up, and it would be something else.
No, Anne, I did NOT swear."

"I didn't say you did."

"Well, you looked it.  But I admit my thoughts verged on the profane.
And I have such a cold in the head -- I can do nothing but sniffle,
sigh and sneeze.  Isn't that alliterative agony for you?  Queen Anne,
do say something to cheer me up."

"Remember that next Thursday night, you'll be back in the land of
Alec and Alonzo," suggested Anne.

Phil shook her head dolefully.

"More alliteration.  No, I don't want Alec and Alonzo when I have
a cold in the head.  But what has happened you two?  Now that I look
at you closely you seem all lighted up with an internal iridescence.
Why, you're actually SHINING!  What's up?"

"We are going to live in Patty's Place next winter," said Anne triumphantly.
"Live, mark you, not board!  We've rented it, and Stella Maynard is coming,
and her aunt is going to keep house for us."

Phil bounced up, wiped her nose, and fell on her knees before Anne.

"Girls -- girls -- let me come, too.  Oh, I'll be so good.  If
there's no room for me I'll sleep in the little doghouse in the
orchard -- I've seen it.  Only let me come."

"Get up, you goose."

"I won't stir off my marrow bones till you tell me I can live
with you next winter."

Anne and Priscilla looked at each other.  Then Anne said slowly,
"Phil dear, we'd love to have you.  But we may as well speak plainly.
I'm poor -- Pris is poor -- Stella Maynard is poor -- our housekeeping
will have to be very simple and our table plain.  You'd have to live as
we would.  Now, you are rich and your boardinghouse fare attests the fact."

"Oh, what do I care for that?" demanded Phil tragically.
"Better a dinner of herbs where your chums are than a stalled ox
in a lonely boardinghouse.  Don't think I'm ALL stomach, girls.
I'll be willing to live on bread and water -- with just a LEETLE
jam -- if you'll let me come."

"And then," continued Anne, "there will be a good deal of work to be done.
Stella's aunt can't do it all.  We all expect to have our chores to do.
Now, you -- "

"Toil not, neither do I spin," finished Philippa.  "But I'll learn
to do things.  You'll only have to show me once.  I CAN make my
own bed to begin with.  And remember that, though I can't cook,
I CAN keep my temper.  That's something.  And I NEVER growl about
the weather.  That's more.  Oh, please, please!  I never wanted
anything so much in my life -- and this floor is awfully hard."

"There's just one more thing," said Priscilla resolutely.
"You, Phil, as all Redmond knows, entertain callers almost every
evening.  Now, at Patty's Place we can't do that.  We have decided
that we shall be at home to our friends on Friday evenings only.
If you come with us you'll have to abide by that rule."

"Well, you don't think I'll mind that, do you?  Why, I'm glad of it.
I knew I should have had some such rule myself, but I hadn't
enough decision to make it or stick to it.  When I can shuffle
off the responsibility on you it will be a real relief.  If you
won't let me cast in my lot with you I'll die of the disappointment
and then I'll come back and haunt you.  I'll camp on the very doorstep
of Patty's Place and you won't be able to go out or come in without
falling over my spook."

Again Anne and Priscilla exchanged eloquent looks.

"Well," said Anne, "of course we can't promise to take you until
we've consulted with Stella; but I don't think she'll object,
and, as far as we are concerned, you may come and glad welcome."

"If you get tired of our simple life you can leave us, and no
questions asked," added Priscilla.

Phil sprang up, hugged them both jubilantly, and went on her way
rejoicing.

"I hope things will go right," said Priscilla soberly.

"We must MAKE them go right," avowed Anne.  "I think Phil will
fit into our 'appy little 'ome very well."

"Oh, Phil's a dear to rattle round with and be chums.  And, of course,
the more there are of us the easier it will be on our slim purses.
But how will she be to live with?  You have to summer and winter with
any one before you know if she's LIVABLE or not."

"Oh, well, we'll all be put to the test, as far as that goes.
And we must quit us like sensible folk, living and let live.
Phil isn't selfish, though she's a little thoughtless, and I
believe we will all get on beautifully in Patty's Place."




Chapter XI

The Round of Life


Anne was back in Avonlea with the luster of the Thorburn Scholarship
on her brow.  People told her she hadn't changed much, in a tone
which hinted they were surprised and a little disappointed she hadn't.
Avonlea had not changed, either.  At least, so it seemed at first.
But as Anne sat in the Green Gables pew, on the first Sunday after
her return, and looked over the congregation, she saw several little
changes which, all coming home to her at once, made her realize that
time did not quite stand still, even in Avonlea.  A new minister was in
the pulpit.  In the pews more than one familiar face was missing forever.
Old "Uncle Abe," his prophesying over and done with, Mrs. Peter Sloane,
who had sighed, it was to be hoped, for the last time, Timothy Cotton,
who, as Mrs. Rachel Lynde said "had actually managed to die at last
after practicing at it for twenty years," and old Josiah Sloane, whom
nobody knew in his coffin because he had his whiskers neatly trimmed,
were all sleeping in the little graveyard behind the church.  And Billy
Andrews was married to Nettie Blewett!  They "appeared out" that Sunday.
When Billy, beaming with pride and happiness, showed his be-plumed and
be-silked bride into the Harmon Andrews' pew, Anne dropped her lids to
hide her dancing eyes.  She recalled the stormy winter night of the
Christmas holidays when Jane had proposed for Billy.  He certainly
had not broken his heart over his rejection.  Anne wondered if Jane
had also proposed to Nettie for him, or if he had mustered enough
spunk to ask the fateful question himself.  All the Andrews family
seemed to share in his pride and pleasure, from Mrs. Harmon in the
pew to Jane in the choir.  Jane had resigned from the Avonlea school
and intended to go West in the fall.

"Can't get a beau in Avonlea, that's what," said Mrs. Rachel Lynde
scornfully.  "SAYS she thinks she'll have better health out West.
I never heard her health was poor before."

"Jane is a nice girl," Anne had said loyally.  "She never tried
to attract attention, as some did."

"Oh, she never chased the boys, if that's what you mean," said
Mrs. Rachel.  "But she'd like to be married, just as much as
anybody, that's what.  What else would take her out West to some
forsaken place whose only recommendation is that men are plenty
and women scarce?  Don't you tell me!"

But it was not at Jane, Anne gazed that day in dismay and surprise.
It was at Ruby Gillis, who sat beside her in the choir.  What had
happened to Ruby?  She was even handsomer than ever; but her blue
eyes were too bright and lustrous, and the color of her cheeks was
hectically brilliant; besides, she was very thin; the hands that
held her hymn-book were almost transparent in their delicacy.

"Is Ruby Gillis ill?" Anne asked of Mrs. Lynde, as they went
home from church.

"Ruby Gillis is dying of galloping consumption," said Mrs. Lynde
bluntly.  "Everybody knows it except herself and her FAMILY.
They won't give in.  If you ask THEM, she's perfectly well.
She hasn't been able to teach since she had that attack of
congestion in the winter, but she says she's going to teach
again in the fall, and she's after the White Sands school.
She'll be in her grave, poor girl, when White Sands school opens,
that's what."

Anne listened in shocked silence.  Ruby Gillis, her old school-chum,
dying?  Could it be possible?  Of late years they had grown apart;
but the old tie of school-girl intimacy was there, and made itself
felt sharply in the tug the news gave at Anne's heartstrings.
Ruby, the brilliant, the merry, the coquettish!  It was impossible
to associate the thought of her with anything like death.  She had
greeted Anne with gay cordiality after church, and urged her to
come up the next evening.

"I'll be away Tuesday and Wednesday evenings," she had whispered
triumphantly.  "There's a concert at Carmody and a party at White
Sands.  Herb Spencer's going to take me.  He's my LATEST.  Be sure
to come up tomorrow.  I'm dying for a good talk with you.  I want
to hear all about your doings at Redmond."

Anne knew that Ruby meant that she wanted to tell Anne all about
her own recent flirtations, but she promised to go, and Diana
offered to go with her.

"I've been wanting to go to see Ruby for a long while," she told Anne,
when they left Green Gables the next evening, "but I really couldn't
go alone.  It's so awful to hear Ruby rattling on as she does, and
pretending there is nothing the matter with her, even when she can
hardly speak for coughing.  She's fighting so hard for her life,
and yet she hasn't any chance at all, they say."

The girls walked silently down the red, twilit road.  The robins
were singing vespers in the high treetops, filling the golden air
with their jubilant voices.  The silver fluting of the frogs came
from marshes and ponds, over fields where seeds were beginning to
stir with life and thrill to the sunshine and rain that had
drifted over them.  The air was fragrant with the wild, sweet,
wholesome smell of young raspberry copses.  White mists were
hovering in the silent hollows and violet stars were shining
bluely on the brooklands.

"What a beautiful sunset," said Diana.  "Look, Anne, it's just like
a land in itself, isn't it?  That long, low back of purple cloud
is the shore, and the clear sky further on is like a golden sea."

"If we could sail to it in the moonshine boat Paul wrote of in
his old composition -- you remember?  -- how nice it would be,"
said Anne, rousing from her reverie.  "Do you think we could find
all our yesterdays there, Diana -- all our old springs and
blossoms?  The beds of flowers that Paul saw there are the roses
that have bloomed for us in the past?"

"Don't!" said Diana.  "You make me feel as if we were old women
with everything in life behind us."

"I think I've almost felt as if we were since I heard about poor Ruby,"
said Anne.  "If it is true that she is dying any other sad thing might
be true, too."

"You don't mind calling in at Elisha Wright's for a moment, do you?"
asked Diana.  "Mother asked me to leave this little dish of jelly
for Aunt Atossa."

"Who is Aunt Atossa?"

"Oh, haven't you heard?  She's Mrs. Samson Coates of Spencervale
-- Mrs. Elisha Wright's aunt.  She's father's aunt, too.  Her
husband died last winter and she was left very poor and lonely,
so the Wrights took her to live with them.  Mother thought we
ought to take her, but father put his foot down.  Live with Aunt
Atossa he would not."

"Is she so terrible?" asked Anne absently.

"You'll probably see what she's like before we can get away,"
said Diana significantly.  "Father says she has a face like a
hatchet -- it cuts the air.  But her tongue is sharper still."

Late as it was Aunt Atossa was cutting potato sets in the Wright
kitchen.  She wore a faded old wrapper, and her gray hair was
decidedly untidy.  Aunt Atossa did not like being "caught in a
kilter," so she went out of her way to be disagreeable.

"Oh, so you're Anne Shirley?" she said, when Diana introduced Anne.
"I've heard of you."  Her tone implied that she had heard nothing good.
"Mrs. Andrews was telling me you were home.  She said you had improved
a good deal."

There was no doubt Aunt Atossa thought there was plenty of room for
further improvement.  She ceased not from cutting sets with much energy.

"Is it any use to ask you to sit down?" she inquired sarcastically.
"Of course, there's nothing very entertaining here for you.  The rest
are all away."

"Mother sent you this little pot of rhubarb jelly," said Diana
pleasantly.  "She made it today and thought you might like some."

"Oh, thanks," said Aunt Atossa sourly.  "I never fancy your
mother's jelly -- she always makes it too sweet.  However, I'll
try to worry some down.  My appetite's been dreadful poor this
spring.  I'm far from well," continued Aunt Atossa solemnly, "but
still I keep a-doing.  People who can't work aren't wanted here.
If it isn't too much trouble will you be condescending enough
to set the jelly in the pantry?  I'm in a hurry to get these spuds
done tonight.  I suppose you two LADIES never do anything like this.
You'd be afraid of spoiling your hands."

"I used to cut potato sets before we rented the farm," smiled Anne.

"I do it yet," laughed Diana.  "I cut sets three days last week.
Of course," she added teasingly, "I did my hands up in lemon
juice and kid gloves every night after it."

Aunt Atossa sniffed.

"I suppose you got that notion out of some of those silly
magazines you read so many of.  I wonder your mother allows you.
But she always spoiled you.  We all thought when George married
her she wouldn't be a suitable wife for him."

Aunt Atossa sighed heavily, as if all forebodings upon the
occasion of George Barry's marriage had been amply and darkly
fulfilled.

"Going, are you?" she inquired, as the girls rose.  "Well, I
suppose you can't find much amusement talking to an old woman
like me.  It's such a pity the boys ain't home."

"We want to run in and see Ruby Gillis a little while," explained Diana.

"Oh, anything does for an excuse, of course," said Aunt Atossa, amiably.
"Just whip in and whip out before you have time to say how-do decently.
It's college airs, I s'pose.  You'd be wiser to keep away from Ruby Gillis.
The doctors say consumption's catching.  I always knew Ruby'd get something,
gadding off to Boston last fall for a visit.  People who ain't content to
stay home always catch something."

"People who don't go visiting catch things, too.  Sometimes they even die,"
said Diana solemnly.

"Then they don't have themselves to blame for it," retorted Aunt Atossa
triumphantly.  "I hear you are to be married in June, Diana."

"There is no truth in that report," said Diana, blushing.

"Well, don't put it off too long," said Aunt Atossa significantly.
"You'll fade soon -- you're all complexion and hair.  And the Wrights
are terrible fickle.  You ought to wear a hat, MISS SHIRLEY.  Your nose
is freckling scandalous.  My, but you ARE redheaded!  Well, I s'pose
we're all as the Lord made us!  Give Marilla Cuthbert my respects.
She's never been to see me since I come to Avonlea, but I s'pose I
oughtn't to complain.  The Cuthberts always did think themselves
a cut higher than any one else round here."

"Oh, isn't she dreadful?" gasped Diana, as they escaped down the lane.

"She's worse than Miss Eliza Andrews," said Anne.  "But then think
of living all your life with a name like Atossa!  Wouldn't it sour
almost any one?  She should have tried to imagine her name was Cordelia.
It might have helped her a great deal.  It certainly helped me in the
days when I didn't like ANNE."

"Josie Pye will be just like her when she grows up," said Diana.
"Josie's mother and Aunt Atossa are cousins, you know.  Oh, dear,
I'm glad that's over.  She's so malicious -- she seems to put a
bad flavor in everything.  Father tells such a funny story about her.
One time they had a minister in Spencervale who was a very good,
spiritual man but very deaf.  He couldn't hear any ordinary
conversation at all.  Well, they used to have a prayer meeting on
Sunday evenings, and all the church members present would get up
and pray in turn, or say a few words on some Bible verse.  But
one evening Aunt Atossa bounced up.  She didn't either pray or
preach.  Instead, she lit into everybody else in the church and
gave them a fearful raking down, calling them right out by name
and telling them how they all had behaved, and casting up all the
quarrels and scandals of the past ten years.  Finally she wound
up by saying that she was disgusted with Spencervale church and
she never meant to darken its door again, and she hoped a fearful
judgment would come upon it.  Then she sat down out of breath,
and the minister, who hadn't heard a word she said, immediately
remarked, in a very devout voice, `amen!  The Lord grant our dear
sister's prayer!'  You ought to hear father tell the story."

"Speaking of stories, Diana," remarked Anne, in a significant,
confidential tone, "do you know that lately I have been wondering
if I could write a short story -- a story that would be good
enough to be published?"

"Why, of course you could," said Diana, after she had grasped the
amazing suggestion.  "You used to write perfectly thrilling stories
years ago in our old Story Club."

"Well, I hardly meant one of that kind of stories," smiled Anne.
"I've been thinking about it a little of late, but I'm almost
afraid to try, for, if I should fail, it would be too humiliating."

"I heard Priscilla say once that all Mrs. Morgan's first stories
were rejected.  But I'm sure yours wouldn't be, Anne, for it's
likely editors have more sense nowadays."

"Margaret Burton, one of the Junior girls at Redmond, wrote a
story last winter and it was published in the Canadian Woman.
I really do think I could write one at least as good."

"And will you have it published in the Canadian Woman?"

"I might try one of the bigger magazines first.  It all depends
on what kind of a story I write."

"What is it to be about?"

"I don't know yet.  I want to get hold of a good plot.  I believe
this is very necessary from an editor's point of view.  The only
thing I've settled on is the heroine's name.  It is to be AVERIL
LESTER.  Rather pretty, don't you think?  Don't mention this to
any one, Diana.  I haven't told anybody but you and Mr. Harrison.
HE wasn't very encouraging -- he said there was far too much
trash written nowadays as it was, and he'd expected something
better of me, after a year at college."

"What does Mr. Harrison know about it?" demanded Diana scornfully.

They found the Gillis home gay with lights and callers.  Leonard
Kimball, of Spencervale, and Morgan Bell, of Carmody, were glaring
at each other across the parlor.  Several merry girls had dropped in.
Ruby was dressed in white and her eyes and cheeks were very brilliant.
She laughed and chattered incessantly, and after the other girls had
gone she took Anne upstairs to display her new summer dresses.

"I've a blue silk to make up yet, but it's a little heavy for
summer wear.  I think I'll leave it until the fall.  I'm going
to teach in White Sands, you know.  How do you like my hat?
That one you had on in church yesterday was real dinky.
But I like something brighter for myself.  Did you notice
those two ridiculous boys downstairs?  They've both come
determined to sit each other out.  I don't care a single bit
about either of them, you know.  Herb Spencer is the one I like.
Sometimes I really do think he's MR. RIGHT.  At Christmas I
thought the Spencervale schoolmaster was that.  But I found
out something about him that turned me against him.  He nearly
went insane when I turned him down.  I wish those two boys hadn't
come tonight.  I wanted to have a nice good talk with you, Anne,
and tell you such heaps of things.  You and I were always good
chums, weren't we?"

Ruby slipped her arm about Anne's waist with a shallow little laugh.
But just for a moment their eyes met, and, behind all the luster
of Ruby's, Anne saw something that made her heart ache.

"Come up often, won't you, Anne?" whispered Ruby.  "Come alone --
I want you."

"Are you feeling quite well, Ruby?"

"Me!  Why, I'm perfectly well.  I never felt better in my life.
Of course, that congestion last winter pulled me down a little.
But just see my color.  I don't look much like an invalid, I'm sure."

Ruby's voice was almost sharp.  She pulled her arm away from Anne,
as if in resentment, and ran downstairs, where she was gayer than
ever, apparently so much absorbed in bantering her two swains that
Diana and Anne felt rather out of it and soon went away.




Chapter XII

"Averil's Atonement"


"What are you dreaming of, Anne?"

The two girls were loitering one evening in a fairy hollow of the
brook.  Ferns nodded in it, and little grasses were green, and
wild pears hung finely-scented, white curtains around it.

Anne roused herself from her reverie with a happy sigh.

"I was thinking out my story, Diana."

"Oh, have you really begun it?" cried Diana, all alight with
eager interest in a moment.

"Yes, I have only a few pages written, but I have it all pretty
well thought out.  I've had such a time to get a suitable plot.
None of the plots that suggested themselves suited a girl named
AVERIL."

"Couldn't you have changed her name?"

"No, the thing was impossible.  I tried to, but I couldn't do it,
any more than I could change yours.  AVERIL was so real to me
that no matter what other name I tried to give her I just thought
of her as AVERIL behind it all.  But finally I got a plot that
matched her.  Then came the excitement of choosing names for
all my characters.  You have no idea how fascinating that is.
I've lain awake for hours thinking over those names.  The hero's
name is PERCEVAL DALRYMPLE."

"Have you named ALL the characters?" asked Diana wistfully.  "If
you hadn't I was going to ask you to let me name one -- just some
unimportant person.  I'd feel as if I had a share in the story then."

"You may name the little hired boy who lived with the LESTERS,"
conceded Anne.  "He is not very important, but he is the only one
left unnamed."

"Call him RAYMOND FITZOSBORNE," suggested Diana, who had a store
of such names laid away in her memory, relics of the old "Story
Club," which she and Anne and Jane Andrews and Ruby Gillis had
had in their schooldays.

Anne shook her head doubtfully.

"I'm afraid that is too aristocratic a name for a chore boy,
Diana.  I couldn't imagine a Fitzosborne feeding pigs and picking
up chips, could you?"

Diana didn't see why, if you had an imagination at all, you
couldn't stretch it to that extent; but probably Anne knew best,
and the chore boy was finally christened ROBERT RAY, to be called
BOBBY should occasion require.

"How much do you suppose you'll get for it?" asked Diana.

But Anne had not thought about this at all.  She was in pursuit
of fame, not filthy lucre, and her literary dreams were as yet
untainted by mercenary considerations.

"You'll let me read it, won't you?" pleaded Diana.

"When it is finished I'll read it to you and Mr. Harrison, and I
shall want you to criticize it SEVERELY.  No one else shall see
it until it is published."

"How are you going to end it -- happily or unhappily?"

"I'm not sure.  I'd like it to end unhappily, because that would
be so much more romantic.  But I understand editors have a prejudice
against sad endings.  I heard Professor Hamilton say once that nobody
but a genius should try to write an unhappy ending.

And," concluded Anne modestly, "I'm anything but a genius."

"Oh I like happy endings best.  You'd better let him marry her,"
said Diana, who, especially since her engagement to Fred, thought
this was how every story should end.

"But you like to cry over stories?"

"Oh, yes, in the middle of them.  But I like everything to come
right at last."

"I must have one pathetic scene in it," said Anne thoughtfully.
"I might let ROBERT RAY be injured in an accident and have a
death scene."

"No, you mustn't kill BOBBY off," declared Diana, laughing.
"He belongs to me and I want him to live and flourish.  Kill
somebody else if you have to."

For the next fortnight Anne writhed or reveled, according to
mood, in her literary pursuits.  Now she would be jubilant over a
brilliant idea, now despairing because some contrary character
would NOT behave properly.  Diana could not understand this.

"MAKE them do as you want them to," she said.

"I can't," mourned Anne.  "Averil is such an unmanageable heroine.
She WILL do and say things I never meant her to.  Then that spoils
everything that went before and I have to write it all over again."

Finally, however, the story was finished, and Anne read it to
Diana in the seclusion of the porch gable.  She had achieved her
"pathetic scene" without sacrificing ROBERT RAY, and she kept a
watchful eye on Diana as she read it.  Diana rose to the occasion
and cried properly; but, when the end came, she looked a little
disappointed.

"Why did you kill MAURICE LENNOX?" she asked reproachfully.

"He was the villain," protested Anne.  "He had to be punished."

"I like him best of them all," said unreasonable Diana.

"Well, he's dead, and he'll have to stay dead," said Anne,
rather resentfully.  "If I had let him live he'd have gone
on persecuting AVERIL and PERCEVAL."

"Yes -- unless you had reformed him."

"That wouldn't have been romantic, and, besides, it would have
made the story too long."

"Well, anyway, it's a perfectly elegant story, Anne, and will
make you famous, of that I'm sure.  Have you got a title for it?"

"Oh, I decided on the title long ago.  I call it AVERIL'S
ATONEMENT.  Doesn't that sound nice and alliterative?  Now,
Diana, tell me candidly, do you see any faults in my story?"

"Well," hesitated Diana, "that part where AVERIL makes the cake
doesn't seem to me quite romantic enough to match the rest.  It's
just what anybody might do.  Heroines shouldn't do cooking, _I_ think."

"Why, that is where the humor comes in, and it's one of the best
parts of the whole story," said Anne.  And it may be stated that
in this she was quite right.

Diana prudently refrained from any further criticism, but
Mr. Harrison was much harder to please.  First he told her
there was entirely too much description in the story.

"Cut out all those flowery passages," he said unfeelingly.

Anne had an uncomfortable conviction that Mr. Harrison was right,
and she forced herself to expunge most of her beloved descriptions,
though it took three re-writings before the story could be pruned
down to please the fastidious Mr. Harrison.

"I've left out ALL the descriptions but the sunset," she said at last.
"I simply COULDN'T let it go.  It was the best of them all."

"It hasn't anything to do with the story," said Mr. Harrison,
"and you shouldn't have laid the scene among rich city people.
What do you know of them?  Why didn't you lay it right here in
Avonlea -- changing the name, of course, or else Mrs. Rachel
Lynde would probably think she was the heroine."

"Oh, that would never have done," protested Anne.  "Avonlea is
the dearest place in the world, but it isn't quite romantic
enough for the scene of a story."

"I daresay there's been many a romance in Avonlea -- and many a
tragedy, too," said Mr. Harrison drily.  "But your folks ain't
like real folks anywhere.  They talk too much and use too
high-flown language.  There's one place where that DALRYMPLE chap
talks even on for two pages, and never lets the girl get a word in
edgewise.  If he'd done that in real life she'd have pitched him."

"I don't believe it," said Anne flatly.  In her secret soul she
thought that the beautiful, poetical things said to AVERIL would
win any girl's heart completely.  Besides, it was gruesome to hear
of AVERIL, the stately, queen-like AVERIL, "pitching" any one.
AVERIL "declined her suitors."

"Anyhow," resumed the merciless Mr. Harrison, "I don't see why
MAURICE LENNOX didn't get her.  He was twice the man the other is.
He did bad things, but he did them.  Perceval hadn't time for
anything but mooning."

"Mooning."  That was even worse than "pitching!"

"MAURICE LENNOX was the villain," said Anne indignantly.
"I don't see why every one likes him better than PERCEVAL."

"Perceval is too good.  He's aggravating.  Next time you write
about a hero put a little spice of human nature in him."

"AVERIL couldn't have married MAURICE.  He was bad."

"She'd have reformed him.  You can reform a man; you can't reform
a jelly-fish, of course.  Your story isn't bad -- it's kind of
interesting, I'll admit.  But you're too young to write a story
that would be worth while.  Wait ten years."

Anne made up her mind that the next time she wrote a story she
wouldn't ask anybody to criticize it.  It was too discouraging.
She would not read the story to Gilbert, although she told him
about it.

"If it is a success you'll see it when it is published, Gilbert,
but if it is a failure nobody shall ever see it."

Marilla knew nothing about the venture.  In imagination Anne saw
herself reading a story out of a magazine to Marilla, entrapping
her into praise of it -- for in imagination all things are
possible -- and then triumphantly announcing herself the author.

One day Anne took to the Post Office a long, bulky envelope,
addressed, with the delightful confidence of youth and
inexperience, to the very biggest of the "big" magazines.
Diana was as excited over it as Anne herself.

"How long do you suppose it will be before you hear from it?"
she asked.

"It shouldn't be longer than a fortnight.  Oh, how happy and
proud I shall be if it is accepted!"

"Of course it will be accepted, and they will likely ask you to
send them more.  You may be as famous as Mrs. Morgan some day,
Anne, and then how proud I'll be of knowing you," said Diana, who
possessed, at least, the striking merit of an unselfish
admiration of the gifts and graces of her friends.

A week of delightful dreaming followed, and then came a bitter awakening.
One evening Diana found Anne in the porch gable, with suspicious-looking
eyes.  On the table lay a long envelope and a crumpled manuscript.

"Anne, your story hasn't come back?" cried Diana incredulously.

"Yes, it has," said Anne shortly.

"Well, that editor must be crazy.  What reason did he give?"

"No reason at all.  There is just a printed slip saying that it
wasn't found acceptable."

"I never thought much of that magazine, anyway," said Diana hotly.
"The stories in it are not half as interesting as those in the
Canadian Woman, although it costs so much more.  I suppose
the editor is prejudiced against any one who isn't a Yankee.
Don't be discouraged, Anne.  Remember how Mrs. Morgan's stories
came back.  Send yours to the Canadian Woman."

"I believe I will," said Anne, plucking up heart.  "And if it is
published I'll send that American editor a marked copy.  But I'll
cut the sunset out.  I believe Mr. Harrison was right."

Out came the sunset; but in spite of this heroic mutilation the
editor of the Canadian Woman sent Averil's Atonement back so
promptly that the indignant Diana declared that it couldn't have
been read at all, and vowed she was going to stop her subscription
immediately.  Anne took this second rejection with the calmness of
despair.  She locked the story away in the garret trunk where the
old Story Club tales reposed; but first she yielded to Diana's
entreaties and gave her a copy.

"This is the end of my literary ambitions," she said bitterly.

She never mentioned the matter to Mr. Harrison, but one evening
he asked her bluntly if her story had been accepted.

"No, the editor wouldn't take it," she answered briefly.

Mr. Harrison looked sidewise at the flushed, delicate profile.

"Well, I suppose you'll keep on writing them," he said encouragingly.

"No, I shall never try to write a story again," declared Anne, with
the hopeless finality of nineteen when a door is shut in its face.

"I wouldn't give up altogether," said Mr. Harrison reflectively.  "I'd
write a story once in a while, but I wouldn't pester editors with it.
I'd write of people and places like I knew, and I'd make my characters
talk everyday English; and I'd let the sun rise and set in the usual
quiet way without much fuss over the fact.  If I had to have villains
at all, I'd give them a chance, Anne -- I'd give them a chance.
There are some terrible bad men in the world, I suppose, but you'd
have to go a long piece to find them -- though Mrs. Lynde believes we're
all bad.  But most of us have got a little decency somewhere in us.
Keep on writing, Anne."

"No.  It was very foolish of me to attempt it.  When I'm through
Redmond I'll stick to teaching.  I can teach.  I can't write stories."

"It'll be time for you to be getting a husband when you're
through Redmond," said Mr. Harrison.  "I don't believe in
putting marrying off too long -- like I did."

Anne got up and marched home.  There were times when Mr. Harrison
was really intolerable.  "Pitching," "mooning," and "getting a
husband."  Ow!!




Chapter XIII

The Way of Transgressors


Davy and Dora were ready for Sunday School.  They were going alone,
which did not often happen, for Mrs. Lynde always attended Sunday School.
But Mrs. Lynde had twisted her ankle and was lame, so she was staying
home this morning.  The twins were also to represent the family at church,
for Anne had gone away the evening before to spend Sunday with friends
in Carmody, and Marilla had one of her headaches.

Davy came downstairs slowly.  Dora was waiting in the hall for him, having
been made ready by Mrs. Lynde.  Davy had attended to his own preparations.
He had a cent in his pocket for the Sunday School collection, and a five-cent
piece for the church collection; he carried his Bible in one hand and his
Sunday School quarterly in the other; he knew his lesson and his Golden Text
and his catechism question perfectly.  Had he not studied them -- perforce
-- in Mrs. Lynde's kitchen, all last Sunday afternoon?  Davy, therefore,
should have been in a placid frame of mind.  As a matter of fact, despite
text and catechism, he was inwardly as a ravening wolf.

Mrs. Lynde limped out of her kitchen as he joined Dora.

"Are you clean?" she demanded severely.

"Yes -- all of me that shows," Davy answered with a defiant scowl.

Mrs. Rachel sighed.  She had her suspicions about Davy's neck
and ears.  But she knew that if she attempted to make a personal
examination Davy would likely take to his heels and she could not
pursue him today.

"Well, be sure you behave yourselves," she warned them.  "Don't walk
in the dust.  Don't stop in the porch to talk to the other children.
Don't squirm or wriggle in your places.  Don't forget the Golden Text.
Don't lose your collection or forget to put it in.  Don't whisper at
prayer time, and don't forget to pay attention to the sermon."

Davy deigned no response.  He marched away down the lane,
followed by the meek Dora.  But his soul seethed within.
Davy had suffered, or thought he had suffered, many things at the
hands and tongue of Mrs. Rachel Lynde since she had come to Green
Gables, for Mrs. Lynde could not live with anybody, whether they
were nine or ninety, without trying to bring them up properly.
And it was only the preceding afternoon that she had interfered
to influence Marilla against allowing Davy to go fishing with the
Timothy Cottons.  Davy was still boiling over this.

As soon as he was out of the lane Davy stopped and twisted his
countenance into such an unearthly and terrific contortion that Dora,
although she knew his gifts in that respect, was honestly alarmed lest
he should never in the world be able to get it straightened out again.

"Darn her," exploded Davy.

"Oh, Davy, don't swear," gasped Dora in dismay.

"`Darn' isn't swearing -- not real swearing.  And I don't care
if it is," retorted Davy recklessly.

"Well, if you MUST say dreadful words don't say them on Sunday," pleaded Dora.

Davy was as yet far from repentance, but in his secret soul he felt that,
perhaps, he had gone a little too far.

"I'm going to invent a swear word of my own," he declared.

"God will punish you if you do," said Dora solemnly.

"Then I think God is a mean old scamp," retorted Davy.  "Doesn't
He know a fellow must have some way of 'spressing his feelings?"

"Davy!!!" said Dora.  She expected that Davy would be struck down
dead on the spot.  But nothing happened.

"Anyway, I ain't going to stand any more of Mrs. Lynde's bossing,"
spluttered Davy.  "Anne and Marilla may have the right to boss me,
but SHE hasn't.  I'm going to do every single thing she told me not to do.
You watch me."

In grim, deliberate silence, while Dora watched him with the
fascination of horror, Davy stepped off the green grass of the
roadside, ankle deep into the fine dust which four weeks of
rainless weather had made on the road, and marched along in it,
shuffling his feet viciously until he was enveloped in a hazy cloud.

"That's the beginning," he announced triumphantly."  And I'm
going to stop in the porch and talk as long as there's anybody
there to talk to.  I'm going to squirm and wriggle and whisper,
and I'm going to say I don't know the Golden Text.  And I'm going
to throw away both of my collections RIGHT NOW."

And Davy hurled cent and nickel over Mr. Barry's fence with
fierce delight.

"Satan made you do that," said Dora reproachfully.

"He didn't," cried Davy indignantly.  "I just thought it out for myself.
And I've thought of something else.  I'm not going to Sunday School or
church at all.  I'm going up to play with the Cottons.  They told me
yesterday they weren't going to Sunday School today, 'cause their mother
was away and there was nobody to make them.  Come along, Dora, we'll have
a great time."

"I don't want to go," protested Dora.

"You've got to," said Davy.  "If you don't come I'll tell Marilla
that Frank Bell kissed you in school last Monday."

"I couldn't help it.  I didn't know he was going to," cried Dora,
blushing scarlet.

"Well, you didn't slap him or seem a bit cross," retorted Davy.
"I'll tell her THAT, too, if you don't come.  We'll take the
short cut up this field."

"I'm afraid of those cows," protested poor Dora, seeing a
prospect of escape.

"The very idea of your being scared of those cows," scoffed Davy.
"Why, they're both younger than you."

"They're bigger," said Dora.

"They won't hurt you.  Come along, now.  This is great.  When I
grow up I ain't going to bother going to church at all.  I
believe I can get to heaven by myself."

"You'll go to the other place if you break the Sabbath day,"
said unhappy Dora, following him sorely against her will.

But Davy was not scared -- yet.  Hell was very far off, and the
delights of a fishing expedition with the Cottons were very near.
He wished Dora had more spunk.  She kept looking back as if she
were going to cry every minute, and that spoiled a fellow's fun.
Hang girls, anyway.  Davy did not say "darn" this time, even in thought.
He was not sorry -- yet -- that he had said it once, but it might be
as well not to tempt the Unknown Powers too far on one day.

The small Cottons were playing in their back yard, and hailed
Davy's appearance with whoops of delight.  Pete, Tommy, Adolphus,
and Mirabel Cotton were all alone.  Their mother and older
sisters were away.  Dora was thankful Mirabel was there, at least.
She had been afraid she would be alone in a crowd of boys.  Mirabel
was almost as bad as a boy -- she was so noisy and sunburned and reckless.
But at least she wore dresses.

"We've come to go fishing," announced Davy.

"Whoop," yelled the Cottons.  They rushed away to dig worms at once,
Mirabel leading the van with a tin can.  Dora could have sat down
and cried.  Oh, if only that hateful Frank Bell had never kissed her!
Then she could have defied Davy, and gone to her beloved Sunday School.

They dared not, of course, go fishing on the pond, where they
would be seen by people going to church.  They had to resort to
the brook in the woods behind the Cotton house.  But it was full
of trout, and they had a glorious time that morning -- at least
the Cottons certainly had, and Davy seemed to have it.  Not being
entirely bereft of prudence, he had discarded boots and stockings
and borrowed Tommy Cotton's overalls.  Thus accoutered, bog and
marsh and undergrowth had no terrors for him.  Dora was frankly
and manifestly miserable.  She followed the others in their
peregrinations from pool to pool, clasping her Bible and
quarterly tightly and thinking with bitterness of soul of her
beloved class where she should be sitting that very moment,
before a teacher she adored.  Instead, here she was roaming the
woods with those half-wild Cottons, trying to keep her boots clean
and her pretty white dress free from rents and stains.  Mirabel
had offered the loan of an apron but Dora had scornfully refused.

The trout bit as they always do on Sundays.  In an hour the
transgressors had all the fish they wanted, so they returned to
the house, much to Dora's relief.  She sat primly on a hencoop in
the yard while the others played an uproarious game of tag; and
then they all climbed to the top of the pig-house roof and cut
their initials on the saddleboard.  The flat-roofed henhouse and
a pile of straw beneath gave Davy another inspiration.  They
spent a splendid half hour climbing on the roof and diving off
into the straw with whoops and yells.

But even unlawful pleasures must come to an end.  When the rumble
of wheels over the pond bridge told that people were going home
from church Davy knew they must go.  He discarded Tommy's overalls,
resumed his own rightful attire, and turned away from his string
of trout with a sigh.  No use to think of taking them home.

"Well, hadn't we a splendid time?" he demanded defiantly, as they
went down the hill field.

"I hadn't," said Dora flatly.  "And I don't believe you had --
really -- either," she added, with a flash of insight that was
not to be expected of her.

"I had so," cried Davy, but in the voice of one who doth protest too much.
"No wonder you hadn't -- just sitting there like a -- like a mule."

"I ain't going to, 'sociate with the Cottons," said Dora loftily.

"The Cottons are all right," retorted Davy.  "And they have far better
times than we have.  They do just as they please and say just what they
like before everybody.  _I_'m going to do that, too, after this."

"There are lots of things you wouldn't dare say before everybody,"
averred Dora.

"No, there isn't."

"There is, too.  Would you," demanded Dora gravely, "would you
say `tomcat' before the minister?"

This was a staggerer.  Davy was not prepared for such a concrete
example of the freedom of speech.  But one did not have to be
consistent with Dora.

"Of course not," he admitted sulkily.

"`Tomcat' isn't a holy word.  I wouldn't mention such an animal
before a minister at all."

"But if you had to?" persisted Dora.

"I'd call it a Thomas pussy," said Davy.

"_I_ think `gentleman cat' would be more polite," reflected Dora.

"YOU thinking!" retorted Davy with withering scorn.

Davy was not feeling comfortable, though he would have died
before he admitted it to Dora.  Now that the exhilaration of
truant delights had died away, his conscience was beginning to
give him salutary twinges.  After all, perhaps it would have been
better to have gone to Sunday School and church.  Mrs. Lynde
might be bossy; but there was always a box of cookies in her
kitchen cupboard and she was not stingy.  At this inconvenient
moment Davy remembered that when he had torn his new school pants
the week before, Mrs. Lynde had mended them beautifully and
never said a word to Marilla about them.

But Davy's cup of iniquity was not yet full.  He was to discover
that one sin demands another to cover it.  They had dinner with
Mrs. Lynde that day, and the first thing she asked Davy was,

"Were all your class in Sunday School today?"

"Yes'm," said Davy with a gulp.  "All were there -- 'cept one."

"Did you say your Golden Text and catechism?"

"Yes'm."

"Did you put your collection in?"

"Yes'm."

"Was Mrs. Malcolm MacPherson in church?"

"I don't know."  This, at least, was the truth, thought wretched Davy.

"Was the Ladies' Aid announced for next week?"

"Yes'm" -- quakingly.

"Was prayer-meeting?"

"I -- I don't know."

"YOU should know.  You should listen more attentively to the announcements.
What was Mr. Harvey's text?"

Davy took a frantic gulp of water and swallowed it and the last
protest of conscience together.  He glibly recited an old Golden
Text learned several weeks ago.  Fortunately Mrs. Lynde now
stopped questioning him; but Davy did not enjoy his dinner.

He could only eat one helping of pudding.

"What's the matter with you?" demanded justly astonished Mrs. Lynde.
"Are you sick?"

"No," muttered Davy.

"You look pale.  You'd better keep out of the sun this afternoon,"
admonished Mrs. Lynde.

"Do you know how many lies you told Mrs. Lynde?" asked Dora
reproachfully, as soon as they were alone after dinner.

Davy, goaded to desperation, turned fiercely.

"I don't know and I don't care," he said.  "You just shut up,
Dora Keith."

Then poor Davy betook himself to a secluded retreat behind the
woodpile to think over the way of transgressors.

Green Gables was wrapped in darkness and silence when Anne
reached home.  She lost no time going to bed, for she was very
tired and sleepy.  There had been several Avonlea jollifications
the preceding week, involving rather late hours.  Anne's head was
hardly on her pillow before she was half asleep; but just then
her door was softly opened and a pleading voice said, "Anne."

Anne sat up drowsily.

"Davy, is that you?  What is the matter?"

A white-clad figure flung itself across the floor and on to the bed.

"Anne," sobbed Davy, getting his arms about her neck.  "I'm awful
glad you're home.  I couldn't go to sleep till I'd told somebody."

"Told somebody what?"

"How mis'rubul I am."

"Why are you miserable, dear?"

"'Cause I was so bad today, Anne.  Oh, I was awful bad --
badder'n I've ever been yet."

"What did you do?"

"Oh, I'm afraid to tell you.  You'll never like me again, Anne.
I couldn't say my prayers tonight.  I couldn't tell God what
I'd done.  I was 'shamed to have Him know."

"But He knew anyway, Davy."

"That's what Dora said.  But I thought p'raps He mightn't have
noticed just at the time.  Anyway, I'd rather tell you first."

"WHAT is it you did?"

Out it all came in a rush.

"I run away from Sunday School -- and went fishing with the
Cottons -- and I told ever so many whoppers to Mrs. Lynde -- oh!
'most half a dozen -- and -- and -- I -- I said a swear word,
Anne -- a pretty near swear word, anyhow -- and I called God names."

There was silence.  Davy didn't know what to make of it.  Was
Anne so shocked that she never would speak to him again?

"Anne, what are you going to do to me?" he whispered.

"Nothing, dear.  You've been punished already, I think."

"No, I haven't.  Nothing's been done to me."

"You've been very unhappy ever since you did wrong, haven't you?"

"You bet!" said Davy emphatically.

"That was your conscience punishing you, Davy."

"What's my conscience?  I want to know."

"It's something in you, Davy, that always tells you when you are
doing wrong and makes you unhappy if you persist in doing it.
Haven't you noticed that?"

"Yes, but I didn't know what it was.  I wish I didn't have it.
I'd have lots more fun.  Where is my conscience, Anne?  I want to know.
Is it in my stomach?"

"No, it's in your soul," answered Anne, thankful for the
darkness, since gravity must be preserved in serious matters.

"I s'pose I can't get clear of it then," said Davy with a sigh.
"Are you going to tell Marilla and Mrs. Lynde on me, Anne?"

"No, dear, I'm not going to tell any one.  You are sorry you were
naughty, aren't you?"

"You bet!"

"And you'll never be bad like that again."

"No, but -- " added Davy cautiously, "I might be bad some other way."

"You won't say naughty words, or run away on Sundays, or tell falsehoods
to cover up your sins?"

"No.  It doesn't pay," said Davy.

"Well, Davy, just tell God you are sorry and ask Him to forgive you."

"Have YOU forgiven me, Anne?"

"Yes, dear."

"Then," said Davy joyously, "I don't care much whether God does or not."

"Davy!"

"Oh -- I'll ask Him -- I'll ask Him," said Davy quickly,
scrambling off the bed, convinced by Anne's tone that he must
have said something dreadful.  "I don't mind asking Him, Anne.
-- Please, God, I'm awful sorry I behaved bad today and
I'll try to be good on Sundays always and please forgive me.
-- There now, Anne."

"Well, now, run off to bed like a good boy."

"All right.  Say, I don't feel mis'rubul any more.  I feel fine.
Good night."

"Good night."

Anne slipped down on her pillows with a sigh of relief.  Oh --
how sleepy -- she was!  In another second --

"Anne!"  Davy was back again by her bed.  Anne dragged her eyes open.

"What is it now, dear?" she asked, trying to keep a note of
impatience out of her voice.

"Anne, have you ever noticed how Mr. Harrison spits?  Do you
s'pose, if I practice hard, I can learn to spit just like him?"

Anne sat up.

"Davy Keith," she said, "go straight to your bed and don't let me
catch you out of it again tonight!  Go, now!"

Davy went, and stood not upon the order of his going.




Chapter XIV

The Summons


Anne was sitting with Ruby Gillis in the Gillis' garden after the day
had crept lingeringly through it and was gone.  It had been a warm,
smoky summer afternoon.  The world was in a splendor of out-flowering.
The idle valleys were full of hazes.  The woodways were pranked with
shadows and the fields with the purple of the asters.

Anne had given up a moonlight drive to the White Sands beach that
she might spend the evening with Ruby.  She had so spent many
evenings that summer, although she often wondered what good it did
any one, and sometimes went home deciding that she could not go again.

Ruby grew paler as the summer waned; the White Sands school was
given up -- "her father thought it better that she shouldn't
teach till New Year's" -- and the fancy work she loved oftener
and oftener fell from hands grown too weary for it.  But she was
always gay, always hopeful, always chattering and whispering of
her beaux, and their rivalries and despairs.  It was this that
made Anne's visits hard for her.  What had once been silly or
amusing was gruesome, now; it was death peering through a wilful
mask of life.  Yet Ruby seemed to cling to her, and never let her
go until she had promised to come again soon.  Mrs. Lynde
grumbled about Anne's frequent visits, and declared she would
catch consumption; even Marilla was dubious.

"Every time you go to see Ruby you come home looking tired out,"
she said.

"It's so very sad and dreadful," said Anne in a low tone.  "Ruby
doesn't seem to realize her condition in the least.  And yet I
somehow feel she needs help -- craves it -- and I want to give it
to her and can't.  All the time I'm with her I feel as if I were
watching her struggle with an invisible foe -- trying to push it
back with such feeble resistance as she has.  That is why I come
home tired."

But tonight Anne did not feel this so keenly.  Ruby was strangely
quiet.  She said not a word about parties and drives and dresses
and "fellows."  She lay in the hammock, with her untouched work
beside her, and a white shawl wrapped about her thin shoulders.
Her long yellow braids of hair -- how Anne had envied those
beautiful braids in old schooldays!  -- lay on either side of her.
She had taken the pins out -- they made her head ache, she said.
The hectic flush was gone for the time, leaving her pale and childlike.

The moon rose in the silvery sky, empearling the clouds
around her. Below, the pond shimmered in its hazy radiance.
Just beyond the Gillis homestead was the church, with the old
graveyard beside it.  The moonlight shone on the white stones,
bringing them out in clear-cut relief against the dark trees behind.

"How strange the graveyard looks by moonlight!" said Ruby suddenly.
"How ghostly!" she shuddered.  "Anne, it won't be long now before
I'll be lying over there.  You and Diana and all the rest will be
going about, full of life -- and I'll be there -- in the old graveyard
-- dead!"

The surprise of it bewildered Anne.  For a few moments she could not speak.

"You know it's so, don't you?" said Ruby insistently.

"Yes, I know," answered Anne in a low tone.  "Dear Ruby, I know."

"Everybody knows it," said Ruby bitterly.  "I know it -- I've
known it all summer, though I wouldn't give in.  And, oh, Anne"
-- she reached out and caught Anne's hand pleadingly, impulsively
-- "I don't want to die.  I'm AFRAID to die."

"Why should you be afraid, Ruby?" asked Anne quietly.

"Because -- because -- oh, I'm not afraid but that I'll go to
heaven, Anne.  I'm a church member.  But -- it'll be all so
different.  I think -- and think -- and I get so frightened --
and -- and -- homesick.  Heaven must be very beautiful, of course,
the Bible says so -- but, Anne, IT WON'T BE WHAT I'VE BEEN USED TO."

Through Anne's mind drifted an intrusive recollection of a funny
story she had heard Philippa Gordon tell -- the story of some old
man who had said very much the same thing about the world to come.
It had sounded funny then -- she remembered how she and
Priscilla had laughed over it.  But it did not seem in the
least humorous now, coming from Ruby's pale, trembling lips.
It was sad, tragic -- and true!  Heaven could not be what Ruby had
been used to.  There had been nothing in her gay, frivolous life,
her shallow ideals and aspirations, to fit her for that great change,
or make the life to come seem to her anything but alien and
unreal and undesirable.  Anne wondered helplessly what she could
say that would help her.  Could she say anything?  "I think, Ruby,"
she began hesitatingly -- for it was difficult for Anne to speak
to any one of the deepest thoughts of her heart, or the new
ideas that had vaguely begun to shape themselves in her mind,
concerning the great mysteries of life here and hereafter,
superseding her old childish conceptions, and it was hardest of
all to speak of them to such as Ruby Gillis -- "I think, perhaps,
we have very mistaken ideas about heaven -- what it is and what
it holds for us.  I don't think it can be so very different from
life here as most people seem to think.  I believe we'll just go
on living, a good deal as we live here -- and be OURSELVES just
the same -- only it will be easier to be good and to -- follow
the highest.  All the hindrances and perplexities will be taken
away, and we shall see clearly.  Don't be afraid, Ruby."

"I can't help it," said Ruby pitifully.  "Even if what you say
about heaven is true -- and you can't be sure -- it may be only
that imagination of yours -- it won't be JUST the same.  It CAN'T be.
I want to go on living HERE.  I'm so young, Anne.  I haven't had
my life.  I've fought so hard to live -- and it isn't any use
-- I have to die -- and leave EVERYTHING I care for."  Anne sat
in a pain that was almost intolerable.  She could not tell
comforting falsehoods; and all that Ruby said was so horribly
true.  She WAS leaving everything she cared for.  She had laid up
her treasures on earth only; she had lived solely for the little
things of life -- the things that pass -- forgetting the great
things that go onward into eternity, bridging the gulf between
the two lives and making of death a mere passing from one
dwelling to the other -- from twilight to unclouded day.  God
would take care of her there -- Anne believed -- she would learn
-- but now it was no wonder her soul clung, in blind helplessness,
to the only things she knew and loved.

Ruby raised herself on her arm and lifted up her bright, beautiful
blue eyes to the moonlit skies.

"I want to live," she said, in a trembling voice.  "I want to
live like other girls.  I -- I want to be married, Anne -- and --
and -- have little children.  You know I always loved babies, Anne.
I couldn't say this to any one but you.  I know you understand.
And then poor Herb -- he -- he loves me and I love him, Anne.
The others meant nothing to me, but HE does -- and if I could
live I would be his wife and be so happy.  Oh, Anne, it's hard."

Ruby sank back on her pillows and sobbed convulsively.  Anne
pressed her hand in an agony of sympathy -- silent sympathy,
which perhaps helped Ruby more than broken, imperfect words could
have done; for presently she grew calmer and her sobs ceased.

"I'm glad I've told you this, Anne," she whispered.  "It has
helped me just to say it all out.  I've wanted to all summer --
every time you came.  I wanted to talk it over with you -- but
I COULDN'T.  It seemed as if it would make death so SURE if I
SAID I was going to die, or if any one else said it or hinted it.
I wouldn't say it, or even think it.  In the daytime, when people
were around me and everything was cheerful, it wasn't so hard to
keep from thinking of it.  But in the night, when I couldn't sleep
-- it was so dreadful, Anne.  I couldn't get away from it then.
Death just came and stared me in the face, until I got so frightened
I could have screamed.

"But you won't be frightened any more, Ruby, will you?  You'll be brave,
and believe that all is going to be well with you."

"I'll try.  I'll think over what you have said, and try to believe it.
And you'll come up as often as you can, won't you, Anne?"

"Yes, dear."

"It -- it won't be very long now, Anne.  I feel sure of that.
And I'd rather have you than any one else.  I always liked you
best of all the girls I went to school with.  You were never
jealous, or mean, like some of them were.  Poor Em White was up
to see me yesterday.  You remember Em and I were such chums for
three years when we went to school?  And then we quarrelled the
time of the school concert.  We've never spoken to each other
since.  Wasn't it silly?  Anything like that seems silly NOW.
But Em and I made up the old quarrel yesterday.  She said she'd
have spoken years ago, only she thought I wouldn't.  And I never
spoke to her because I was sure she wouldn't speak to me.  Isn't
it strange how people misunderstand each other, Anne?"

"Most of the trouble in life comes from misunderstanding, I think,"
said Anne.  "I must go now, Ruby.  It's getting late -- and you
shouldn't be out in the damp."

"You'll come up soon again."

"Yes, very soon.  And if there's anything I can do to help you
I'll be so glad."

"I know.  You HAVE helped me already.  Nothing seems quite so
dreadful now.  Good night, Anne."

"Good night, dear."

Anne walked home very slowly in the moonlight.  The evening had
changed something for her.  Life held a different meaning, a
deeper purpose.  On the surface it would go on just the same; but
the deeps had been stirred.  It must not be with her as with poor
butterfly Ruby.  When she came to the end of one life it must not
be to face the next with the shrinking terror of something wholly
different -- something for which accustomed thought and ideal and
aspiration had unfitted her.  The little things of life, sweet
and excellent in their place, must not be the things lived for;
the highest must be sought and followed; the life of heaven must
be begun here on earth.

That good night in the garden was for all time.  Anne never saw
Ruby in life again.  The next night the A.V.I.S. gave a farewell
party to Jane Andrews before her departure for the West.  And,
while light feet danced and bright eyes laughed and merry tongues
chattered, there came a summons to a soul in Avonlea that might
not be disregarded or evaded.  The next morning the word went
from house to house that Ruby Gillis was dead.  She had died in
her sleep, painlessly and calmly, and on her face was a smile --
as if, after all, death had come as a kindly friend to lead her
over the threshold, instead of the grisly phantom she had dreaded.

Mrs. Rachel Lynde said emphatically after the funeral that Ruby
Gillis was the handsomest corpse she ever laid eyes on.  Her
loveliness, as she lay, white-clad, among the delicate flowers
that Anne had placed about her, was remembered and talked of for
years in Avonlea.  Ruby had always been beautiful; but her beauty
had been of the earth, earthy; it had had a certain insolent
quality in it, as if it flaunted itself in the beholder's eye;
spirit had never shone through it, intellect had never refined it.
But death had touched it and consecrated it, bringing out delicate
modelings and purity of outline never seen before -- doing what life
and love and great sorrow and deep womanhood joys might have done
for Ruby.  Anne, looking down through a mist of tears, at her old
playfellow, thought she saw the face God had meant Ruby to have,
and remembered it so always.

Mrs. Gillis called Anne aside into a vacant room before the
funeral procession left the house, and gave her a small packet.

"I want you to have this," she sobbed.  "Ruby would have liked you
to have it.  It's the embroidered centerpiece she was working at.
It isn't quite finished -- the needle is sticking in it just where
her poor little fingers put it the last time she laid it down, the
afternoon before she died."

"There's always a piece of unfinished work left," said Mrs. Lynde,
with tears in her eyes.  "But I suppose there's always some one
to finish it."

"How difficult it is to realize that one we have always known
can really be dead," said Anne, as she and Diana walked home.
"Ruby is the first of our schoolmates to go.  One by one, sooner
or later, all the rest of us must follow."

"Yes, I suppose so," said Diana uncomfortably.  She did not
want to talk of that.  She would have preferred to have discussed
the details of the funeral -- the splendid white velvet casket
Mr. Gillis had insisted on having for Ruby -- "the Gillises must
always make a splurge, even at funerals," quoth Mrs. Rachel Lynde
-- Herb Spencer's sad face, the uncontrolled, hysteric grief of
one of Ruby's sisters -- but Anne would not talk of these things.
She seemed wrapped in a reverie in which Diana felt lonesomely
that she had neither lot nor part.

"Ruby Gillis was a great girl to laugh," said Davy suddenly.
"Will she laugh as much in heaven as she did in Avonlea, Anne?
I want to know."

"Yes, I think she will," said Anne.

"Oh, Anne," protested Diana, with a rather shocked smile.

"Well, why not, Diana?" asked Anne seriously.  "Do you think
we'll never laugh in heaven?"

"Oh -- I -- I don't know" floundered Diana.  "It doesn't seem
just right, somehow.  You know it's rather dreadful to laugh in
church."

"But heaven won't be like church -- all the time," said Anne.

"I hope it ain't," said Davy emphatically.  "If it is I don't
want to go.  Church is awful dull.  Anyway, I don't mean to go
for ever so long.  I mean to live to be a hundred years old, like
Mr. Thomas Blewett of White Sands.  He says he's lived so long
'cause he always smoked tobacco and it killed all the germs.
Can I smoke tobacco pretty soon, Anne?"

"No, Davy, I hope you'll never use tobacco," said Anne absently.

"What'll you feel like if the germs kill me then?" demanded Davy.




Chapter XV

A Dream Turned Upside Down


"Just one more week and we go back to Redmond," said Anne.
She was happy at the thought of returning to work, classes
and Redmond friends.  Pleasing visions were also being woven
around Patty's Place.  There was a warm pleasant sense of home
in the thought of it, even though she had never lived there.

But the summer had been a very happy one, too -- a time of glad living
with summer suns and skies, a time of keen delight in wholesome things;
a time of renewing and deepening of old friendships; a time in which
she had learned to live more nobly, to work more patiently, to play
more heartily.

"All life lessons are not learned at college," she thought.
"Life teaches them everywhere."

But alas, the final week of that pleasant vacation was spoiled for Anne,
by one of those impish happenings which are like a dream turned upside down.

"Been writing any more stories lately?" inquired Mr. Harrison genially
one evening when Anne was taking tea with him and Mrs. Harrison.

"No," answered Anne, rather crisply.

"Well, no offense meant.  Mrs. Hiram Sloane told me the other
day that a big envelope addressed to the Rollings Reliable Baking
Powder Company of Montreal had been dropped into the post office
box a month ago, and she suspicioned that somebody was trying for
the prize they'd offered for the best story that introduced the
name of their baking powder.  She said it wasn't addressed in
your writing, but I thought maybe it was you."

"Indeed, no!  I saw the prize offer, but I'd never dream of
competing for it.  I think it would be perfectly disgraceful to
write a story to advertise a baking powder.  It would be almost
as bad as Judson Parker's patent medicine fence."

So spake Anne loftily, little dreaming of the valley of
humiliation awaiting her.  That very evening Diana popped into
the porch gable, bright-eyed and rosy cheeked, carrying a letter.

"Oh, Anne, here's a letter for you.  I was at the office, so I
thought I'd bring it along.  Do open it quick.  If it is what I
believe it is I shall just be wild with delight."  Anne, puzzled,
opened the letter and glanced over the typewritten contents.


      Miss Anne Shirley,
      Green Gables,
      Avonlea, P.E. Island.

"DEAR MADAM: We have much pleasure in informing you that
your charming story `Averil's Atonement' has won the prize
of twenty-five dollars offered in our recent competition.
We enclose the check herewith.  We are arranging for the
publication of the story in several prominent Canadian
newspapers, and we also intend to have it printed in
pamphlet form for distribution among our patrons.
Thanking you for the interest you have shown in
our enterprise, we remain,

                                   Yours very truly,
                                THE ROLLINGS RELIABLE
                                   BAKING POWDER Co."


"I don't understand," said Anne, blankly.

Diana clapped her hands.

"Oh, I KNEW it would win the prize -- I was sure of it.
_I_ sent your story into the competition, Anne."

"Diana -- Barry!"

"Yes, I did," said Diana gleefully, perching herself on the bed.
"When I saw the offer I thought of your story in a minute, and at
first I thought I'd ask you to send it in.  But then I was afraid
you wouldn't -- you had so little faith left in it.  So I just
decided I'd send the copy you gave me, and say nothing about it.
Then, if it didn't win the prize, you'd never know and you wouldn't
feel badly over it, because the stories that failed were not to be
returned, and if it did you'd have such a delightful surprise."

Diana was not the most discerning of mortals, but just at this
moment it struck her that Anne was not looking exactly overjoyed.
The surprise was there, beyond doubt -- but where was the delight?

"Why, Anne, you don't seem a bit pleased!" she exclaimed.

Anne instantly manufactured a smile and put it on.

"Of course I couldn't be anything but pleased over your unselfish
wish to give me pleasure," she said slowly.  "But you know -- I'm
so amazed -- I can't realize it -- and I don't understand.  There
wasn't a word in my story about -- about -- " Anne choked a little
over the word -- "baking powder."

"Oh, _I_ put that in," said Diana, reassured.  "It was as easy as
wink -- and of course my experience in our old Story Club helped me.
You know the scene where Averil makes the cake?  Well, I just stated
that she used the Rollings Reliable in it, and that was why it turned
out so well; and then, in the last paragraph, where PERCEVAL clasps
AVERIL in his arms and says, `Sweetheart, the beautiful coming years
will bring us the fulfilment of our home of dreams,' I added, `in which
we will never use any baking powder except Rollings Reliable.'"

"Oh," gasped poor Anne, as if some one had dashed cold water on her.

"And you've won the twenty-five dollars," continued Diana jubilantly.
"Why, I heard Priscilla say once that the Canadian Woman only pays
five dollars for a story!"

Anne held out the hateful pink slip in shaking fingers.

"I can't take it -- it's yours by right, Diana.  You sent the
story in and made the alterations.  I -- I would certainly never
have sent it.  So you must take the check."

"I'd like to see myself," said Diana scornfully.  "Why, what I
did wasn't any trouble.  The honor of being a friend of the
prizewinner is enough for me.  Well, I must go.  I should have
gone straight home from the post office for we have company.
But I simply had to come and hear the news.  I'm so glad for
your sake, Anne."

Anne suddenly bent forward, put her arms about Diana, and kissed
her cheek.

"I think you are the sweetest and truest friend in the world,
Diana," she said, with a little tremble in her voice, "and I
assure you I appreciate the motive of what you've done."

Diana, pleased and embarrassed, got herself away, and poor Anne,
after flinging the innocent check into her bureau drawer as if it
were blood-money, cast herself on her bed and wept tears of shame
and outraged sensibility.  Oh, she could never live this down -- never!

Gilbert arrived at dusk, brimming over with congratulations,
for he had called at Orchard Slope and heard the news.  But his
congratulations died on his lips at sight of Anne's face.

"Why, Anne, what is the matter?  I  expected to find you radiant
over winning Rollings Reliable prize.  Good for you!"

"Oh, Gilbert, not you," implored Anne, in an ET-TU BRUTE tone.
"I thought YOU would understand.  Can't you see how awful it is?"

"I must confess I can't.  WHAT is wrong?"

"Everything," moaned Anne.  "I feel as if I were disgraced forever.
What do you think a mother would feel like if she found her
child tattooed over with a baking powder advertisement?
I feel just the same.  I loved my poor little story, and I
wrote it out of the best that was in me.  And it is SACRILEGE to
have it degraded to the level of a baking powder advertisement.
Don't you remember what Professor Hamilton used to tell us in the
literature class at Queen's?  He said we were never to write a
word for a low or unworthy motive, but always to cling to the
very highest ideals.  What will he think when he hears I've
written a story to advertise Rollings Reliable?  And, oh, when it
gets out at Redmond!  Think how I'll be teased and laughed at!"

"That you won't," said Gilbert, wondering uneasily if it were
that confounded Junior's opinion in particular over which Anne
was worried.  "The Reds will think just as I thought -- that you,
being like nine out of ten of us, not overburdened with worldly
wealth, had taken this way of earning an honest penny to help
yourself through the year.  I don't see that there's anything low
or unworthy about that, or anything ridiculous either.  One would
rather write masterpieces of literature no doubt -- but meanwhile
board and tuition fees have to be paid."

This commonsense, matter-of-fact view of the case cheered Anne a
little.  At least it removed her dread of being laughed at,
though the deeper hurt of an outraged ideal remained.




Chapter XVI

Adjusted Relationships


"It's the homiest spot I ever saw -- it's homier than home,"
avowed Philippa Gordon, looking about her with delighted eyes.
They were all assembled at twilight in the big living-room at
Patty's Place -- Anne and Priscilla, Phil and Stella, Aunt Jamesina,
Rusty, Joseph, the Sarah-Cat, and Gog and Magog.  The firelight
shadows were dancing over the walls; the cats were purring;
and a huge bowl of hothouse chrysanthemums, sent to Phil by one
of the victims, shone through the golden gloom like creamy moons.

It was three weeks since they had considered themselves settled,
and already all believed the experiment would be a success.  The
first fortnight after their return had been a pleasantly exciting
one; they had been busy setting up their household goods, organizing
their little establishment, and adjusting different opinions.

Anne was not over-sorry to leave Avonlea when the time came to
return to college.  The last few days of her vacation had not
been pleasant.  Her prize story had been published in the Island
papers; and Mr. William Blair had, upon the counter of his
store, a huge pile of pink, green and yellow pamphlets,
containing it, one of which he gave to every customer.  He sent a
complimentary bundle to Anne, who promptly dropped them all in
the kitchen stove.  Her humiliation was the consequence of her
own ideals only, for Avonlea folks thought it quite splendid
that she should have won the prize.  Her many friends regarded
her with honest admiration; her few foes with scornful envy.
Josie Pye said she believed Anne Shirley had just copied the story;
she was sure she remembered reading it in a paper years before.
The Sloanes, who had found out or guessed that Charlie had been
"turned down," said they didn't think it was much to be proud of;
almost any one could have done it, if she tried.  Aunt Atossa
told Anne she was very sorry to hear she had taken to writing
novels; nobody born and bred in Avonlea would do it; that was
what came of adopting orphans from goodness knew where, with
goodness knew what kind of parents.  Even Mrs. Rachel Lynde was
darkly dubious about the propriety of writing fiction, though she
was almost reconciled to it by that twenty-five dollar check.

"It is perfectly amazing, the price they pay for such lies,
that's what," she said, half-proudly, half-severely.

All things considered, it was a relief when going-away time came.
And it was very jolly to be back at Redmond, a wise, experienced
Soph with hosts of friends to greet on the merry opening day.
Pris and Stella and Gilbert were there, Charlie Sloane, looking
more important than ever a Sophomore looked before, Phil, with
the Alec-and-Alonzo question still unsettled, and Moody Spurgeon
MacPherson.  Moody Spurgeon had been teaching school ever since
leaving Queen's, but his mother had concluded it was high time
he gave it up and turned his attention to learning how to be a
minister.  Poor Moody Spurgeon fell on hard luck at the very
beginning of his college career.  Half a dozen ruthless Sophs,
who were among his fellow-boarders, swooped down upon him one
night and shaved half of his head.  In this guise the luckless
Moody Spurgeon had to go about until his hair grew again.  He
told Anne bitterly that there were times when he had his doubts
as to whether he was really called to be a minister.

Aunt Jamesina did not come until the girls had Patty's Place
ready for her.  Miss Patty had sent the key to Anne, with a
letter in which she said Gog and Magog were packed in a box under
the spare-room bed, but might be taken out when wanted; in a
postscript she added that she hoped the girls would be careful
about putting up pictures.  The living room had been newly
papered five years before and she and Miss Maria did not want any
more holes made in that new paper than was absolutely necessary.
For the rest she trusted everything to Anne.

How those girls enjoyed putting their nest in order!  As Phil said,
it was almost as good as getting married.  You had the fun of
homemaking without the bother of a husband.  All brought something
with them to adorn or make comfortable the little house.  Pris and
Phil and Stella had knick-knacks and pictures galore, which latter
they proceeded to hang according to taste, in reckless disregard
of Miss Patty's new paper.

"We'll putty the holes up when we leave, dear -- she'll never know,"
they said to protesting Anne.

Diana had given Anne a pine needle cushion and Miss Ada had given
both her and Priscilla a fearfully and wonderfully embroidered one.
Marilla had sent a big box of preserves, and darkly hinted at a
hamper for Thanksgiving, and Mrs. Lynde gave Anne a patchwork quilt
and loaned her five more.

"You take them," she said authoritatively.  "They might as well be
in use as packed away in that trunk in the garret for moths to gnaw."

No moths would ever have ventured near those quilts, for they
reeked of mothballs to such an extent that they had to be hung in
the orchard of Patty's Place a full fortnight before they could
be endured indoors.  Verily, aristocratic Spofford Avenue had
rarely beheld such a display.  The gruff old millionaire who
lived "next door" came over and wanted to buy the gorgeous red
and yellow "tulip-pattern" one which Mrs. Rachel had given Anne.
He said his mother used to make quilts like that, and by Jove, he
wanted one to remind him of her.  Anne would not sell it, much to
his disappointment, but she wrote all about it to Mrs. Lynde.
That highly-gratified lady sent word back that she had one just
like it to spare, so the tobacco king got his quilt after all,
and insisted on having it spread on his bed, to the disgust of
his fashionable wife.

Mrs. Lynde's quilts served a very useful purpose that winter.
Patty's Place for all its many virtues, had its faults also.
It was really a rather cold house; and when the frosty nights
came the girls were very glad to snuggle down under Mrs. Lynde's
quilts, and hoped that the loan of them might be accounted unto
her for righteousness.  Anne had the blue room she had coveted
at sight.  Priscilla and Stella had the large one.  Phil was
blissfully content with the little one over the kitchen; and
Aunt Jamesina was to have the downstairs one off the living-room.
Rusty at first slept on the doorstep.

Anne, walking home from Redmond a few days after her return,
became aware that the people that she met surveyed her with a
covert, indulgent smile.  Anne wondered uneasily what was the
matter with her.  Was her hat crooked?  Was her belt loose?
Craning her head to investigate, Anne, for the first time,
saw Rusty.

Trotting along behind her, close to her heels, was quite the
most forlorn specimen of the cat tribe she had ever beheld.
The animal was well past kitten-hood, lank, thin, disreputable
looking.  Pieces of both ears were lacking, one eye was
temporarily out of repair, and one jowl ludicrously swollen.
As for color, if a once black cat had been well and thoroughly
singed the result would have resembled the hue of this waif's
thin, draggled, unsightly fur.

Anne "shooed," but the cat would not "shoo."  As long as she
stood he sat back on his haunches and gazed at her reproachfully
out of his one good eye; when she resumed her walk he followed.
Anne resigned herself to his company until she reached the gate
of Patty's Place, which she coldly shut in his face, fondly
supposing she had seen the last of him.  But when, fifteen
minutes later, Phil opened the door, there sat the rusty-brown
cat on the step.  More, he promptly darted in and sprang upon
Anne's lap with a half-pleading, half-triumphant "miaow."

"Anne," said Stella severely, "do you own that animal?"

"No, I do NOT," protested disgusted Anne.  "The creature followed
me home from somewhere.  I couldn't get rid of him.  Ugh, get down.
I like decent cats reasonably well; but I don't like beasties of
your complexion."

Pussy, however, refused to get down.  He coolly curled up in
Anne's lap and began to purr.

"He has evidently adopted you," laughed Priscilla.

"I won't BE adopted," said Anne stubbornly.

"The poor creature is starving," said Phil pityingly.  "Why, his
bones are almost coming through his skin."

"Well, I'll give him a square meal and then he must return to
whence he came," said Anne resolutely.

The cat was fed and put out.  In the morning he was still
on the doorstep.  On the doorstep he continued to sit, bolting
in whenever the door was opened.  No coolness of welcome had
the least effect on him; of nobody save Anne did he take the
least notice.  Out of compassion the girls fed him; but when
a week had passed they decided that something must be done.
The cat's appearance had improved.  His eye and cheek had
resumed their normal appearance; he was not quite so thin;
and he had been seen washing his face.

"But for all that we can't keep him," said Stella.  "Aunt Jimsie
is coming next week and she will bring the Sarah-cat with her.

We can't keep two cats; and if we did this Rusty Coat would
fight all the time with the Sarah-cat.  He's a fighter by nature.
He had a pitched battle last evening with the tobacco-king's cat
and routed him, horse, foot and artillery."

"We must get rid of him," agreed Anne, looking darkly at the
subject of their discussion, who was purring on the hearth rug
with an air of lamb-like meekness.  "But the question is -- how?
How can four unprotected females get rid of a cat who won't be
got rid of?"

We must chloroform him," said Phil briskly.  "That is the most
humane way."

"Who of us knows anything about chloroforming a cat?" demanded
Anne gloomily.

"I do, honey.  It's one of my few -- sadly few -- useful accomplishments.
I've disposed of several at home.  You take the cat in the morning and
give him a good breakfast.  Then you take an old burlap bag -- there's
one in the back porch -- put the cat on it and turn over him a wooden box.
Then take a two-ounce bottle of chloroform, uncork it, and slip it under
the edge of the box.  Put a heavy weight on top of the box and leave it
till evening.  The cat will be dead, curled up peacefully as if he
were asleep.  No pain -- no struggle."

"It sounds easy," said Anne dubiously.

"It IS easy.  Just leave it to me.  I'll see to it," said Phil reassuringly.

Accordingly the chloroform was procured, and the next morning Rusty was
lured to his doom.  He ate his breakfast, licked his chops, and climbed
into Anne's lap.  Anne's heart misgave her.  This poor creature loved her
-- trusted her.  How could she be a party to this destruction?

"Here, take him," she said hastily to Phil.  "I feel like a murderess."

"He won't suffer, you know," comforted Phil, but Anne had fled.

The fatal deed was done in the back porch.  Nobody went near it
that day.  But at dusk Phil declared that Rusty must be buried.

"Pris and Stella must dig his grave in the orchard," declared Phil,
"and Anne must come with me to lift the box off.  That's the part
I always hate."

The two conspirators tip-toed reluctantly to the back porch.
Phil gingerly lifted the stone she had put on the box.  Suddenly,
faint but distinct, sounded an unmistakable mew under the box.

"He -- he isn't dead," gasped Anne, sitting blankly down on the
kitchen doorstep.

"He must be," said Phil incredulously.

Another tiny mew proved that he wasn't.  The two girls stared at
each other."

What will we do?" questioned Anne.

"Why in the world don't you come?" demanded Stella, appearing in
the doorway.  "We've got the grave ready.  `What silent still and
silent all?'" she quoted teasingly.

"`Oh, no, the voices of the dead Sound like the distant torrent's fall,'"
promptly counter-quoted Anne, pointing solemnly to the box.

A burst of laughter broke the tension.

"We must leave him here till morning," said Phil, replacing the stone.
"He hasn't mewed for five minutes.  Perhaps the mews we heard were his
dying groan.  Or perhaps we merely imagined them, under the strain of
our guilty consciences."

But, when the box was lifted in the morning, Rusty bounded at one gay
leap to Anne's shoulder where he began to lick her face affectionately.
Never was there a cat more decidedly alive.

"Here's a knot hole in the box," groaned Phil.  "I never saw it.
That's why he didn't die.  Now, we've got to do it all over again."

"No, we haven't," declared Anne suddenly.  "Rusty isn't going to be
killed again.  He's my cat -- and you've just got to make the best of it."

"Oh, well, if you'll settle with Aunt Jimsie and the Sarah-cat,"
said Stella, with the air of one washing her hands of the whole affair.

From that time Rusty was one of the family.  He slept o'nights on the
scrubbing cushion in the back porch and lived on the fat of the land.
By the time Aunt Jamesina came he was plump and glossy and tolerably
respectable.  But, like Kipling's cat, he "walked by himself."
His paw was against every cat, and every cat's paw against him.
One by one he vanquished the aristocratic felines of Spofford Avenue.
As for human beings, he loved Anne and Anne alone.  Nobody else even
dared stroke him.  An angry spit and something that sounded much like
very improper language greeted any one who did.

"The airs that cat puts on are perfectly intolerable," declared Stella.

"Him was a nice old pussens, him was," vowed Anne, cuddling her pet defiantly.

"Well, I don't know how he and the Sarah-cat will ever make out
to live together," said Stella pesimistically.  "Cat-fights in
the orchard o'nights are bad enough.  But cat-fights here in the
livingroom are unthinkable."  In due time Aunt Jamesina arrived.
Anne and Priscilla and Phil had awaited her advent rather dubiously;
but when Aunt Jamesina was enthroned in the rocking chair before the
open fire they figuratively bowed down and worshipped her.

Aunt Jamesina was a tiny old woman with a little, softly-triangular face,
and large, soft blue eyes that were alight with unquenchable youth, and
as full of hopes as a girl's.  She had pink cheeks and snow-white hair
which she wore in quaint little puffs over her ears.

"It's a very old-fashioned way," she said, knitting industriously
at something as dainty and pink as a sunset cloud.  "But _I_ am old-fashioned.
My clothes are, and it stands to reason my opinions are, too.  I don't say
they're any the better of that, mind you.  In fact, I daresay they're a good
deal the worse.  But they've worn nice and easy.  New shoes are smarter than
old ones, but the old ones are more comfortable.  I'm old enough to indulge
myself in the matter of shoes and opinions.  I mean to take it real easy here.
I know you expect me to look after you and keep you proper, but I'm not going
to do it.

You're old enough to know how to behave if you're ever going to be.
So, as far as I am concerned," concluded Aunt Jamesina, with a twinkle
in her young eyes, "you can all go to destruction in your own way."

"Oh, will somebody separate those cats?" pleaded Stella, shudderingly.

Aunt Jamesina had brought with her not only the Sarah-cat but Joseph.
Joseph, she explained, had belonged to a dear friend of hers who had
gone to live in Vancouver.

"She couldn't take Joseph with her so she begged me to take him.
I really couldn't refuse.  He's a beautiful cat -- that is, his
disposition is beautiful.  She called him Joseph because his coat
is of many colors."

It certainly was.  Joseph, as the disgusted Stella said, looked
like a walking rag-bag.  It was impossible to say what his ground
color was.  His legs were white with black spots on them.
His back was gray with a huge patch of yellow on one side and a
black patch on the other.  His tail was yellow with a gray tip.
One ear was black and one yellow.  A black patch over one eye gave
him a fearfully rakish look.  In reality he was meek and inoffensive,
of a sociable disposition.  In one respect, if in no other, Joseph
was like a lily of the field.  He toiled not neither did he spin
or catch mice.  Yet Solomon in all his glory slept not on softer
cushions, or feasted more fully on fat things.

Joseph and the Sarah-cat arrived by express in separate boxes.
After they had been released and fed, Joseph selected the cushion
and corner which appealed to him, and the Sarah-cat gravely sat
herself down before the fire and proceeded to wash her face.  She
was a large, sleek, gray-and-white cat, with an enormous dignity
which was not at all impaired by any consciousness of her plebian
origin.  She had been given to Aunt Jamesina by her washerwoman.

"Her name was Sarah, so my husband always called puss the
Sarah-cat," explained Aunt Jamesina.  "She is eight years old,
and a remarkable mouser.  Don't worry, Stella.  The Sarah-cat
NEVER fights and Joseph rarely."

"They'll have to fight here in self-defense," said Stella.

At this juncture Rusty arrived on the scene.  He bounded
joyously half way across the room before he saw the intruders.
Then he stopped short; his tail expanded until it was as big as
three tails.  The fur on his back rose up in a defiant arch;
Rusty lowered his head, uttered a fearful shriek of hatred and
defiance, and launched himself at the Sarah-cat.

The stately animal had stopped washing her face and was looking
at him curiously.  She met his onslaught with one contemptuous
sweep of her capable paw.  Rusty went rolling helplessly over on
the rug; he picked himself up dazedly.  What sort of a cat was
this who had boxed his ears?  He looked dubiously at the Sarah-cat.
Would he or would he not?  The Sarah-cat deliberately turned her
back on him and resumed her toilet operations.  Rusty decided that
he would not.  He never did.  From that time on the Sarah-cat ruled
the roost.  Rusty never again interfered with her.

But Joseph rashly sat up and yawned.  Rusty, burning to avenge
his disgrace, swooped down upon him.  Joseph, pacific by nature,
could fight upon occasion and fight well.  The result was a
series of drawn battles.  Every day Rusty and Joseph fought at
sight.  Anne took Rusty's part and detested Joseph.  Stella was
in despair.  But Aunt Jamesina only laughed.

Let them fight it out," she said tolerantly.  "They'll make friends
after a bit.  Joseph needs some exercise -- he was getting too fat.
And Rusty has to learn he isn't the only cat in the world."

Eventually Joseph and Rusty accepted the situation and from sworn
enemies became sworn friends.  They slept on the same cushion with
their paws about each other, and gravely washed each other's faces.

"We've all got used to each other," said Phil.  "And I've learned
how to wash dishes and sweep a floor."

"But you needn't try to make us believe you can chloroform a cat,"
laughed Anne.

"It was all the fault of the knothole," protested Phil.

"It was a good thing the knothole was there," said Aunt Jamesina
rather severely.  "Kittens HAVE to be drowned, I admit, or the
world would be overrun.  But no decent, grown-up cat should be
done to death -- unless he sucks eggs."

"You wouldn't have thought Rusty very decent if you'd seen him when
he came here," said Stella.  "He positively looked like the Old Nick."

"I don't believe Old Nick can be so very, ugly" said Aunt Jamesina
reflectively.  "He wouldn't do so much harm if he was.  _I_ always
think of him as a rather handsome gentleman."




Chapter XVII

A Letter from Davy


"It's beginning to snow, girls," said Phil, coming in one
November evening, "and there are the loveliest little stars and
crosses all over the garden walk.  I never noticed before what
exquisite things snowflakes really are.  One has time to notice
things like that in the simple life.  Bless you all for permitting
me to live it.  It's really delightful to feel worried because
butter has gone up five cents a pound."

"Has it?" demanded Stella, who kept the household accounts.

"It has -- and here's your butter.  I'm getting quite expert at marketing.
It's better fun than flirting," concluded Phil gravely.

"Everything is going up scandalously," sighed Stella.

"Never mind.  Thank goodness air and salvation are still free,"
said Aunt Jamesina.

"And so is laughter," added Anne.  "There's no tax on it yet
and that is well, because you're all going to laugh presently.
I'm going to read you Davy's letter.  His spelling has improved
immensely this past year, though he is not strong on apostrophes,
and he certainly possesses the gift of writing an interesting letter.
Listen and laugh, before we settle down to the evening's study-grind."

"Dear Anne," ran Davy's letter, "I take my pen to tell you that
we are all pretty well and hope this will find you the same.
It's snowing some today and Marilla says the old woman in the sky
is shaking her feather beds.  Is the old woman in the sky God's
wife, Anne?  I want to know.

"Mrs. Lynde has been real sick but she is better now.  She fell
down the cellar stairs last week.  When she fell she grabbed hold
of the shelf with all the milk pails and stewpans on it, and it
gave way and went down with her and made a splendid crash.
Marilla thought it was an earthquake at first.

One of the stewpans was all dinged up and Mrs. Lynde straned her ribs.
The doctor came and gave her medicine to rub on her ribs but
she didn't under stand him and took it all inside instead.
The doctor said it was a wonder it dident kill her but it dident
and it cured her ribs and Mrs. Lynde says doctors dont know much
anyhow.  But we couldent fix up the stewpan.  Marilla had to
throw it out.  Thanksgiving was last week.  There was no school
and we had a great dinner.  I et mince pie and rost turkey and
frut cake and donuts and cheese and jam and choklut cake.
Marilla said I'd die but I dident.  Dora had earake after it,
only it wasent in her ears it was in her stummick.  I dident
have earake anywhere.

"Our new teacher is a man.  He does things for jokes.  Last week
he made all us third-class boys write a composishun on what kind
of a wife we'd like to have and the girls on what kind of a
husband.  He laughed fit to kill when he read them.  This was
mine.  I thought youd like to see it.

"`The kind of a wife I'd like to Have.

"`She must have good manners and get my meals on time and do
what I tell her and always be very polite to me.  She must be
fifteen yers old.  She must be good to the poor and keep her
house tidy and be good tempered and go to church regularly.
She must be very handsome and have curly hair.  If I get a wife
that is just what I like Ill be an awful good husband to her.
I think a woman ought to be awful good to her husband.  Some poor
women havent any husbands.

                                 `THE END.'"


"I was at Mrs. Isaac Wrights funeral at White Sands last week.
The husband of the corpse felt real sorry.  Mrs. Lynde says
Mrs. Wrights grandfather stole a sheep but Marilla says we mustent
speak ill of the dead.  Why mustent we, Anne?  I want to know.
It's pretty safe, ain't it?

"Mrs. Lynde was awful mad the other day because I asked her if
she was alive in Noah's time.  I dident mean to hurt her feelings.
I just wanted to know.  Was she, Anne?

"Mr. Harrison wanted to get rid of his dog.  So he hunged him
once but he come to life and scooted for the barn while Mr.
Harrison was digging the grave, so he hunged him again and he
stayed dead that time.  Mr. Harrison has a new man working for him.
He's awful okward.  Mr. Harrison says he is left handed in both
his feet.  Mr. Barry's hired man is lazy.  Mrs. Barry says that
but Mr. Barry says he aint lazy exactly only he thinks it easier
to pray for things than to work for them.

"Mrs. Harmon Andrews prize pig that she talked so much of died
in a fit.  Mrs. Lynde says it was a judgment on her for pride.
But I think it was hard on the pig.  Milty Boulter has been sick.
The doctor gave him medicine and it tasted horrid.  I offered to
take it for him for a quarter but the Boulters are so mean.
Milty says he'd rather take it himself and save his money.
I asked Mrs. Boulter how a person would go about catching a man and
she got awful mad and said she dident know, shed never chased men.

"The A.V.I.S. is going to paint the hall again.  They're tired
of having it blue.

"The new minister was here to tea last night.  He took three
pieces of pie.

If I did that Mrs. Lynde would call me piggy.  And he et fast and
took big bites and Marilla is always telling me not to do that.
Why can ministers do what boys can't?  I want to know.

"I haven't any more news.  Here are six kisses.  xxxxxx.  Dora
sends one.  Heres hers.  x.

                               "Your loving friend
                                         DAVID KEITH"


"P.S.  Anne, who was the devils father?  I want to know."




Chapter XVIII

Miss Josepine Remembers the Anne-girl


When Christmas holidays came the girls of Patty's Place scattered to
their respective homes, but Aunt Jamesina elected to stay where she was.

"I couldn't go to any of the places I've been invited and take
those three cats," she said.  "And I'm not going to leave the
poor creatures here alone for nearly three weeks.  If we had any
decent neighbors who would feed them I might, but there's nothing
except millionaires on this street.  So I'll stay here and keep
Patty's Place warm for you."

Anne went home with the usual joyous anticipations -- which were
not wholly fulfilled.  She found Avonlea in the grip of such an
early, cold, and stormy winter as even the "oldest inhabitant"
could not recall.  Green Gables was literally hemmed in by huge
drifts.  Almost every day of that ill-starred vacation it stormed
fiercely; and even on fine days it drifted unceasingly.  No
sooner were the roads broken than they filled in again.  It was
almost impossible to stir out.  The A.V.I.S. tried, on three
evenings, to have a party in honor of the college students, and
on each evening the storm was so wild that nobody could go, so
they gave up the attempt in despair.  Anne, despite her love of
and loyalty to Green Gables, could not help thinking longingly of
Patty's Place, its cosy open fire, Aunt Jamesina's mirthful eyes,
the three cats, the merry chatter of the girls, the pleasantness
of Friday evenings when college friends dropped in to talk of
grave and gay.

Anne was lonely; Diana, during the whole of the holidays, was
imprisoned at home with a bad attack of bronchitis.  She could
not come to Green Gables and it was rarely Anne could get to
Orchard Slope, for the old way through the Haunted Wood was
impassable with drifts, and the long way over the frozen Lake of
Shining Waters was almost as bad.  Ruby Gillis was sleeping in
the white-heaped graveyard; Jane Andrews was teaching a school on
western prairies.  Gilbert, to be sure, was still faithful, and
waded up to Green Gables every possible evening.  But Gilbert's
visits were not what they once were.  Anne almost dreaded them.
It was very disconcerting to look up in the midst of a sudden
silence and find Gilbert's hazel eyes fixed upon her with a quite
unmistakable expression in their grave depths; and it was still
more disconcerting to find herself blushing hotly and
uncomfortably under his gaze, just as if -- just as if -- well,
it was very embarrassing.  Anne wished herself back at Patty's
Place, where there was always somebody else about to take the
edge off a delicate situation.  At Green Gables Marilla went
promptly to Mrs. Lynde's domain when Gilbert came and insisted
on taking the twins with her.  The significance of this was
unmistakable and Anne was in a helpless fury over it.

Davy, however, was perfectly happy.  He reveled in getting out in
the morning and shoveling out the paths to the well and henhouse.
He gloried in the Christmas-tide delicacies which Marilla and
Mrs. Lynde vied with each other in preparing for Anne, and he
was reading an enthralling tale, in a school library book, of a
wonderful hero who seemed blessed with a miraculous faculty for
getting into scrapes from which he was usually delivered by an
earthquake or a volcanic explosion, which blew him high and dry
out of his troubles, landed him in a fortune, and closed the
story with proper ECLAT.

"I tell you it's a bully story, Anne," he said ecstatically.
"I'd ever so much rather read it than the Bible."

"Would you?" smiled Anne.

Davy peered curiously at her.

"You don't seem a bit shocked, Anne.  Mrs. Lynde was awful
shocked when I said it to her."

"No, I'm not shocked, Davy.  I think it's quite natural that a
nine-year-old boy would sooner read an adventure story than the
Bible.  But when you are older I hope and think that you will
realize what a wonderful book the Bible is."

"Oh, I think some parts of it are fine," conceded Davy.  "That
story about Joseph now -- it's bully.  But if I'd been Joseph _I_
wouldn't have forgive the brothers.  No, siree, Anne.  I'd have
cut all their heads off.  Mrs. Lynde was awful mad when I said that
and shut the Bible up and said she'd never read me any more of it if
I talked like that.  So I don't talk now when she reads it Sunday
afternoons; I just think things and say them to Milty Boulter next
day in school.  I told Milty the story about Elisha and the bears
and it scared him so he's never made fun of Mr. Harrison's bald
head once.  Are there any bears on P.E. Island, Anne?  I want to know."

"Not nowadays," said Anne, absently, as the wind blew a scud of
snow against the window.  "Oh, dear, will it ever stop storming."

"God knows," said Davy airily, preparing to resume his reading.

Anne WAS shocked this time.

"Davy!" she exclaimed reproachfully.

"Mrs. Lynde says that," protested Davy.  "One night last week
Marilla said `Will Ludovic Speed and Theodora Dix EVER get
married" and Mrs. Lynde said, `God knows' -- just like that."

"Well, it wasn't right for her to say it," said Anne, promptly
deciding upon which horn of this dilemma to empale herself.
"It isn't right for anybody to take that name in vain or
speak it lightly, Davy.  Don't ever do it again."

"Not if I say it slow and solemn, like the minister?" queried
Davy gravely.

"No, not even then."

"Well, I won't.  Ludovic Speed and Theodora Dix live in Middle
Grafton and Mrs. Rachel says he has been courting her for a
hundred years.  Won't they soon be too old to get married, Anne?
I hope Gilbert won't court YOU that long.  When are you going to
be married, Anne?  Mrs. Lynde says it's a sure thing."

"Mrs. Lynde is a --" began Anne hotly; then stopped.  "Awful old
gossip," completed Davy calmly.  "That's what every one calls her.
But is it a sure thing, Anne?  I want to know."

"You're a very silly little boy, Davy," said Anne, stalking
haughtily out of the room.  The kitchen was deserted and she sat
down by the window in the fast falling wintry twilight.  The sun
had set and the wind had died down.  A pale chilly moon looked
out behind a bank of purple clouds in the west.  The sky faded
out, but the strip of yellow along the western horizon grew
brighter and fiercer, as if all the stray gleams of light were
concentrating in one spot; the distant hills, rimmed with
priest-like firs, stood out in dark distinctness against it.
Anne looked across the still, white fields, cold and lifeless
in the harsh light of that grim sunset, and sighed.  She was
very lonely; and she was sad at heart; for she was wondering
if she would be able to return to Redmond next year.  It did not
seem likely.  The only scholarship possible in the Sophomore year
was a very small affair.  She would not take Marilla's money;
and there seemed little prospect of being able to earn enough
in the summer vacation.

"I suppose I'll just have to drop out next year," she thought
drearily, "and teach a district school again until I earn enough
to finish my course.  And by that time all my old class will have
graduated and Patty's Place will be out of the question.  But there!
I'm not going to be a coward.  I'm thankful I can earn my way through
if necessary."

"Here's Mr. Harrison wading up the lane," announced Davy, running out.
"I hope he's brought the mail.  It's three days since we got it.
I want to see what them pesky Grits are doing.  I'm a Conservative, Anne.
And I tell you, you have to keep your eye on them Grits."

Mr. Harrison had brought the mail, and merry letters from Stella
and Priscilla and Phil soon dissipated Anne's blues.  Aunt Jamesina,
too, had written, saying that she was keeping the hearth-fire alight,
and that the cats were all well, and the house plants doing fine.

"The weather has been real cold," she wrote, "so I let the cats sleep
in the house -- Rusty and Joseph on the sofa in the living-room, and
the Sarah-cat on the foot of my bed.  It's real company to hear her
purring when I wake up in the night and think of my poor daughter in
the foreign field.  If it was anywhere but in India I wouldn't worry,
but they say the snakes out there are terrible.  It takes all the
Sarah-cats's purring to drive away the thought of those snakes.
I have enough faith for everything but the snakes.  I can't think
why Providence ever made them.  Sometimes I don't think He did.
I'm inclined to believe the Old Harry had a hand in making THEM."

Anne had left a thin, typewritten communication till the last,
thinking it unimportant.  When she had read it she sat very
still, with tears in her eyes.

"What is the matter, Anne?" asked Marilla.

"Miss Josephine Barry is dead," said Anne, in a low tone.

"So she has gone at last," said Marilla.  "Well, she has been
sick for over a year, and the Barrys have been expecting to hear
of her death any time.  It is well she is at rest for she has
suffered dreadfully, Anne.  She was always kind to you."

"She has been kind to the last, Marilla.  This letter is from her lawyer.
She has left me a thousand dollars in her will."

"Gracious, ain't that an awful lot of money," exclaimed Davy.
"She's the woman you and Diana lit on when you jumped into
the spare room bed, ain't she?  Diana told me that story.
Is that why she left you so much?"

"Hush, Davy," said Anne gently.  She slipped away to the porch
gable with a full heart, leaving Marilla and Mrs. Lynde to talk
over the news to their hearts' content.

"Do you s'pose Anne will ever get married now?" speculated Davy
anxiously.  "When Dorcas Sloane got married last summer she said
if she'd had enough money to live on she'd never have been
bothered with a man, but even a widower with eight children was
better'n living with a sister-in-law."

"Davy Keith, do hold your tongue," said Mrs. Rachel severely.
"The way you talk is scandalous for a small boy, that's what."




Chapter XIX

An Interlude


"To think that this is my twentieth birthday, and that I've left
my teens behind me forever," said Anne, who was curled up on the
hearth-rug with Rusty in her lap, to Aunt Jamesina who was reading
in her pet chair.  They were alone in the living room.  Stella and
Priscilla had gone to a committee meeting and Phil was upstairs
adorning herself for a party.

"I suppose you feel kind of, sorry" said Aunt Jamesina.  "The teens are
such a nice part of life.  I'm glad I've never gone out of them myself."

Anne laughed.

"You never will, Aunty.  You'll be eighteen when you should be a
hundred.  Yes, I'm sorry, and a little dissatisfied as well.
Miss Stacy told me long ago that by the time I was twenty my
character would be formed, for good or evil.  I don't feel that
it's what it should be.  It's full of flaws."

"So's everybody's," said Aunt Jamesina cheerfully.  "Mine's cracked
in a hundred places.  Your Miss Stacy likely meant that when you are
twenty your character would have got its permanent bent in one direction
or 'tother, and would go on developing in that line.  Don't worry over it,
Anne.  Do your duty by God and your neighbor and yourself, and have a good
time.  That's my philosophy and it's always worked pretty well.  Where's
Phil off to tonight?"

"She's going to a dance, and she's got the sweetest dress for it
-- creamy yellow silk and cobwebby lace.  It just suits those
brown tints of hers."

"There's magic in the words `silk' and `lace,' isn't there?" said
Aunt Jamesina.  "The very sound of them makes me feel like
skipping off to a dance.  And YELLOW silk.  It makes one think of
a dress of sunshine.  I always wanted a yellow silk dress, but
first my mother and then my husband wouldn't hear of it.  The
very first thing I'm going to do when I get to heaven is to get a
yellow silk dress."

Amid Anne's peal of laughter Phil came downstairs, trailing clouds
of glory, and surveyed herself in the long oval mirror on the wall.

"A flattering looking glass is a promoter of amiability," she
said.  "The one in my room does certainly make me green.  Do I
look pretty nice, Anne?"

"Do you really know how pretty you are, Phil?" asked Anne,
in honest admiration.

"Of course I do.  What are looking glasses and men for?  That wasn't
what I meant.  Are all my ends tucked in?  Is my skirt straight?
And would this rose look better lower down?  I'm afraid it's too high
-- it will make me look lop-sided.  But I hate things tickling my ears."

"Everything is just right, and that southwest dimple of yours is lovely."

"Anne, there's one thing in particular I like about you -- you're
so ungrudging.  There isn't a particle of envy in you."

"Why should she be envious?" demanded Aunt Jamesina.  "She's not quite
as goodlooking as you, maybe, but she's got a far handsomer nose."

"I know it," conceded Phil.

"My nose always has been a great comfort to me," confessed Anne.

"And I love the way your hair grows on your forehead, Anne.  And
that one wee curl, always looking as if it were going to drop,
but never dropping, is delicious.  But as for noses, mine is a
dreadful worry to me.  I know by the time I'm forty it will be
Byrney.  What do you think I'll look like when I'm forty, Anne?"

"Like an old, matronly, married woman," teased Anne.

"I won't," said Phil, sitting down comfortably to wait for her escort.
"Joseph, you calico beastie, don't you dare jump on my lap.  I won't go
to a dance all over cat hairs.  No, Anne, I WON'T look matronly.  But no
doubt I'll be married."

"To Alec or Alonzo?" asked Anne.

"To one of them, I suppose," sighed Phil, "if I can ever decide which."

"It shouldn't be hard to decide," scolded Aunt Jamesina.

"I was born a see-saw Aunty, and nothing can ever prevent me from teetering."

"You ought to be more levelheaded, Philippa."

"It's best to be levelheaded, of course," agreed Philippa, "but you miss
lots of fun.  As for Alec and Alonzo, if you knew them you'd understand
why it's difficult to choose between them.  They're equally nice."

"Then take somebody who is nicer" suggested Aunt Jamesina.
"There's that Senior who is so devoted to you -- Will Leslie.
He has such nice, large, mild eyes."

"They're a little bit too large and too mild -- like a cow's,"
said Phil cruelly.

"What do you say about George Parker?"

"There's nothing to say about him except that he always looks as
if he had just been starched and ironed."

"Marr Holworthy then.  You can't find a fault with him."

"No, he would do if he wasn't poor.  I must marry a rich man,
Aunt Jamesina.  That -- and good looks -- is an indispensable
qualification.  I'd marry Gilbert Blythe if he were rich."

"Oh, would you?" said Anne, rather viciously.

"We don't like that idea a little bit, although we don't want
Gilbert ourselves, oh, no," mocked Phil.  "But don't let's talk
of disagreeable subjects.  I'll have to marry sometime, I suppose,
but I shall put off the evil day as long as I can."

"You mustn't marry anybody you don't love, Phil, when all's said
and done," said Aunt Jamesina.

      "`Oh, hearts that loved in the good old way
      Have been out o' the fashion this many a day.'"

trilled Phil mockingly.  "There's the carriage.  I fly -- Bi-bi,
you two old-fashioned darlings."

When Phil had gone Aunt Jamesina looked solemnly at Anne.

"That girl is pretty and sweet and goodhearted, but do you think
she is quite right in her mind, by spells, Anne?"

"Oh, I don't think there's anything the matter with Phil's mind,"
said Anne, hiding a smile.  "It's just her way of talking."

Aunt Jamesina shook her head.

"Well, I hope so, Anne.  I do hope so, because I love her.  But _I_
can't understand her -- she beats me.  She isn't like any of the
girls I ever knew, or any of the girls I was myself."

"How many girls were you, Aunt Jimsie?"

"About half a dozen, my dear."